^-^^A  2^ 


BV772  .C752  1860  c.2 
Cooke,  Parsons,  1800-1864 
Divine  law  of  beneficence 


u 


THE 


DIVINE  LAW  OF  BENEFICENCE  ; 


ZACCHEUS, 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  PLAN  OF  BENEVOLENCE; 


THE  MISSION  OF  THE  CHURCH, 


SYSTEMATIC  BENEFICENCE. 


ZACCHEUS 


THE  SCRIPTURAL  PLAN 


BENEVOLENCE. 

BY  EEV.   SAMUEL  HARUIS, 

CONWAY,    MASS. 


And  Zaccheus  stood  and  said  unto  the  Lord,  Behold,  Lord,  the  half  of  my 
goods  I  give  to  the  poor. — Luke  19:8. 


PUBLISHED    BY    THE 

AMERICAN    TRACT    SOCIETY, 

150    NASSAU-STREET,    NEW    YORK. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
PLAN  PRESCRIBED  IN  THE  BIBLE, « 

CHAPTER  II. 
PRINCIPLES  WHICH  GUIDE  INOIEDUCING  THE  SCRIPTURAL 
PLAN  TO  PRACTICE, 13 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    DUTY    OF    SYSTEMATIC    BENEVOLENCE    INFERRED 
FROM  THE  NATURE  AND  MOTIVES  OF  PIETY, ---     19 


CHAPTER  IV. 
SUPERIOR  EFFICIENCY  OF  SYSTEMATIC  BENEVOLENCE  IN 
PROVIDING  FUNDS  FOR  BENEVOLENT  ENTERPRISES,     25 

CHAPTER  V. 

TENDENCY  TO  SECURE  GOD'S  BLESSING  ON  BUSINESS  AND 
TO  ENLARGE  THE  MEANS  OF  GIVING, 37 

CHAPTER  VI. 
THE  ANTIDOTE  OF  COVETOUSNESS, 49 

CHAPTER   VII. 
ESSENTIAL  TO  THE  HIGHEST  SPIRITUAL  ATTAINMENTS,    61 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
INCREASES  THE  SPIRITUAL  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH,      71 

CHAPTER   IX. 
PROMOTES  HAPPINESS,---- 74 


SCRIPTURAL 
PLAN  OF  BENEVOLENCE. 


CHAPTER   I. 

PLAN  PRESCRIBED  IN   THE  BIBLE. 

Thoughtful  readers  cannot  but  observe  the  im- 
portance ascribed  in  the  Bible  to  acts  of  charity; 
the  boldness  with  which  the  inquirer  for  salvation 
is  commanded,  "  Sell  that  thou  hast,  and  give  to 
the  poor  ;"  the  preeminence  in  deadliness  assigned  to 
the  love  of  money  as  "  the  root  of  all  evil ;"  the  ear- 
nestness and  frequency  with  which  men  are  warned 
of  its  perils,  and  of  the  absolute  incompatibility  of 
serving  God  and  mammon  ;  the  elevation  given  to 
the  standard  of  benevolence,  "  Let  this  mind  be  in 
you,  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus  ;"  and  the  vital 
connection  everywhere  implied  between  alms-giving 
and  the  highest  attainments  of  piety,  of  spiritual 
power,  and  spiritual  joy.  They  cannot  but  be  star- 
tled, sometimes,  with  the  apprehension  that  there  is 
a  strange  contrast  here  between  the  Bible  and  the 
church  ;  that  the  faithful  applying  of  scriptural  truth 
on  this  point,  might  make  many  a  professed  disciple 


6  SCRIPrURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

go  away,  like  the  young  ruler,  sorrowful,  or  cry,  as 
they  did  of  old  when  Christ  had  been  preaching  on 
this  very  subject,  "  Who  then  can  be  saved  ?"  And 
they  cannot  but  be  justified  in  inferring  that  this  very 
contrast  between  the  church  and  the  Bible  is  a  promi- 
nent cause  of  embarrassment  in  our  benevolent  en- 
terprises ;  of  the  prevailing  worldliness  of  Christians ; 
the  limited  success  of  efforts  for  the  conversion  of 
souls  ;  the  fewness  of  those  who  enter  into  the  deep- 
est experience  of  the  spiritual  life  ;  and  the  absence 
of  that  rapidity  of  enlargement  and  energy  of  action 
which  marked  the  apostolic  church. 

But  the  Bible  not  only  teaches  the  importance  of 
charity,  it  lays  down  principles  systematizing  it.  To 
secure  its  divinely  appointed  prominence  in  advanc- 
ing the  enterprises,  the  piety,  the  power,  and  the 
blessedness  of  the  church,  it  is  necessary  to  under- 
stand and  to  practise  the  divinely  appointed  plan  of 
systematic  benevolence. 

"  Upon  the  first  day  of  the  week  let  every 
one  of  you  lay  by  him  in  store,  as  god  hath  pros- 
pered him." 

This  requires  that  charitable  appropriations  be 
systematic.  It  requires  some  plan,  deliberately  and 
prayerfully  adopted,  assessing  on  the  income  a  deter- 
minate proportion  for  charitable  purposes.  It  forbids 
giving  merely  from  impulse,  as  under  the  excitement 
of  an  eloquent  charity  sermon,  or  the  accidental  sight 
of  distress     It  forbids  giving  merely  at  random  what 


PLAN  PRESCRIBED.  7 

happens  to  be  convenient.  It  transfers  the  control 
of  charity  from  the  capriciousness  of  sensibiUty  and 
the  parsimony  of  convenience,  to  the  decisions  of  rea- 
son and  conscience.  It  regulates  impulse  by  princi- 
ple. It  brings  the  whole  subject  into  the  closet,  to 
be  determined  by  prayer  and  deliberation,  according 
to  the  rules  of  the  Bible,  in  the  fear  of  God,  and  the 
spirit  of  consecration  to  him.  In  carrying  into  effect 
the  plan  thus  deliberately  adopted,  charitable  appro- 
priations will  enter  into  the  calculations  as  much  as 
the  necessary  expenditures  on  the  person,  the  family, 
or  the  business ;  they  will  be  managed  with  as  sys- 
tematic exactness  as  any  branch  of  business ;  they 
may  with  advantage  be  as  regularly  booked.  A  line 
written  on  a  memorandum  of  his  charities,  kept  by  a 
systematic  giver  and  found  after  his  death,  suggests 
an  important  reason  for  keeping  such  a  record :  "I 
keep  this  memorandum  lest  I  should  think  I  give 
more  than  I  do." 

They  who  obey  the  scriptural  rule  of  benevolence, 
do  not  wait  to  he  solicited.  Like  the  impoverished 
but  liberal  Macedonians,  they  are  "  willing  of  them- 
selves." If  a  way  of  conveying  their  gifts  is  not 
at  hand,  they  seek  one  out,  as  Paul  describes  the 
Macedonians  :  "  praying  us  with  much  entreaty  that 
we  would  receive  the  gift,  and  take  upon  us  the  fel- 
lowship of  the  ministering  to  the  saints."  Thus,  ac- 
cording to  the  inspired  plan,  the  urgent  solicitation  is 
not  on  the  part  of  the  agent  of  benevolence  to  draw 


8  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

charity  from  the  giver,  but  on  the  givers'  part  to  find 
the  agent  to  receive  and  disburse  their  charities.  Let 
this  system  be  adopted,  and  the  funds  of  benevolent 
societies  would  flow  in  unsolicited,  and  the  expense 
of  collecting  agencies  would  cease. 

The  scriptural  rule  requires  frequent  and  stated 
appropriations.  "  On  the  first  day  of  the  week,  let 
every  one  lay  by  him."  If  it  is  allowable  some- 
times to  depart  from  the  letter  of  this  law,  the 
spirit  of  it  must  be  regarded.  Having  adopted  his 
plan  of  giving,  the  giver  is  required  at  frequent  and 
stated  times  to  examine  his  income,  assess  on  it  the 
prescribed  proportion,  and  set  aside  the  amount  sa- 
cred to  benevolence.  His  appropriations  must  be 
frequent,  to  keep  pace  with  his  earnings  and  with 
the  constant  calls  of  benevolence  ;  stated,  that  they 
may  not  be  forgotten.  This  is  inconsistent  with  giv- 
ing a  large  sum,  and  then  for  a  long  time  nothing, 
and  with  the  intention  of  giving  only  or  chiefly  at 
death. 

The  text  cited  requires  that  charities  be  'propor- 
tionate to  the  income.  In  the  laws  regulating  the 
Jewish  tithes  and  offerings,  God  prescribed  precisely 
what  proportion  should  be  given.  This  was  prac 
ticable  in  a  system  of  laws  for  a  single  agricultural 
people,  among  whom  every  family  was  entitled  to 
an  inalienable  inheritance  in  the  soil ;  but  the  gos- 
pel, designed  for  all  nations  and  ages,  could  not  with 
equity  fix  the  precise  proportion.     And  it  fits  the  en- 


PLAN  PRESCRIBED.  9 

tire  character  of  the  gospel — free  grace  from  God, 
free  love  from  man — to  leave  the  decision,  of  this 
point  to  the  unconstrained  love  of  those  who  have 
freely  given  all  to  Christ ;  for  "  God  loveth  a  cheer- 
ful giver,"  But  the  principle  by  which  the  pro- 
portion to  be  given  is  determined,  is  most  explicitly 
stated.  "  Let  every  one  lay  by  him  in  store,  as  God 
hath  'prospered  him''  Nothing  can  satisfy  God's 
claim  less  than  a  consecration  to  benevolence  of  an 
amount  proportioned  to  the  prosperity  God  has  giv- 
en. Do  you  think  yourself  benevolent  because  you 
give  something — much  ?  If  you  give  less  than  "  ac- 
cording as  God  hath  prospered  you,"  yours  is  but  the 
benevolence  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira. 

Tliis  principle  of  proportionate  benevolence  is  re- 
peated in  various  forms  in  the  Bible.  "  If  any  man 
minister,  let  him  do  it  as  of  the  ability  that  God 
giveth."  "  As  every  man  hath  received  the  gift, 
even  so  minister  the  same  one  to  another,  as  good 
stewards  of  the  manifold  grace  of  God."  "As  we 
have  opportunity,  let  us  do  good  unto  all  men." 
'•I  am  debtor"  to  put  forth  benevolent  efibrts  "as 
much  as  in  me  is."  "Honor  the  Lord  with  the 
first-fruits  of  all  thme  increase."  There  are  three 
points  in  this  requirement  of  benevolence  propor- 
tioned to  the  income. 

1.  All  must  give.  "Let  every  one.''  The  gos- 
pel does  not  release  the  poor  from  giving.  The 
smallest  income  can  pay  a  proportion.      Nothing 


10  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

short  of  the  total  cessation  of  God's  gifts  can  exempt 
from  the  law,  "  As  God  hath  prospered  him."  The 
Macedonian  church  were  praised  for  giving  in  "  their 
deep  poverty."  The  story  of  the  widow's  two  mites 
settles  for  ever  the  acceptableness  to  God  of  offerings 
from  the  poor.  And  one  dollar  thus  given,  has 
often  a  moral  power  greater  than  a  thousand.  The 
benevolence  of  Louisa  Osborn  the  colored  domestic, 
who,  from  the  wages  of  one  dollar  a  week,  paid 
twenty  dollars  a  year  to  educate  a  youth  in  Ceylon, 
as  it  has  been  brought  to  light  by  the  missionary 
who  witnessed  the  unusual  benefits  of  her  donation 
to  the  mission,  has  thrilled  the  hearts  of  American 
Christians.  The  widow's  two  mites,  which  were 
all  her  living,  lifted  to  the  gaze  of  the  universe  and 
illuminated  by  the  Saviour's  commendation,  have 
exerted  and  will  exert  a  power  which  no  mine  of  gold 
can  equal — as  if  a  dew-drop,  expending  its  whole 
being  to  refresh  one  tiny  flower,  had  been  trans- 
formed, as  it  exhaled  to  the  skies,  into  a  star,  and 
fixed  in  the  brightness  of  the  firmament  to  bless  the 
creation  for  ever. 

2.  Donations  should  increase  with  the  increase  of 
ability  to  give.  "As  God  hath  prospered  him." 
This  requires  the  rich  to  give  proportionally  to  their 
increasing  wealth,  though,  in  order  to  do  it,  they 
must  give  thousands  of  dollars  where  they  used  to 
give  one.  And  these  great  donations  are  not  to  be 
regarded  as  specially  praiseworthy,  more  than  small- 


PLAN  PRESCRIBED.  H 

er  gifts  which  cost  as  great  sacrifice  and  are  propor- 
tionally as  much.  In  both  cases  the  giver  has  but 
"  done  what  it  was  his-duty  to  do." 

3.  The  rich  must  give  a  larger  'proportion  oj 
their  income  than  the  poor.  A  poor  widow  with  a 
helpless  family  cannot  give  a  tenth  of  her  earnings 
without  taking  bread  from  her  children.  "Will  any 
imagine  that  a  man  who  has  wealth,  or  even  a  com- 
petency, is  required  to  give  no  larger  a  proportion 
of  his  income  than  that  widow  ?  A  poor  laborer 
may  be  subjected  to  more  inconvenience  by  giving 
five  dollars,  than  a  man  of  wealth  by  giving  five 
thousand.  Hence,  the  greater  a  man's  wealth,  the 
larger  must  be  the  proportion  of  income  which  he 
gives.  Hence  the  propriety  of  a  rule  adopted  by 
Mr.  N.  E,.  Cobb,  a  merchant  of  Boston  :  to  give  from 
the  outset  one  quarter  of  the  net  profits  of  his  busi- 
ness ;  should  he  ever  be  worth  $20,000,  to  give  one 
half  of  the  net  'profits  ;  if  worth  $30,000,  to  give 
three  quarter?,;  and  if  ever  worth  $50,000,  to  give 
all  the  profits.  This  resolution  he  kept  till  his 
death,  at  the  age  of  36,  when  he  had  already  acquired 
$50,000,  and  was  giving  all  his  profits. 

Different  individuals,  who  have  aimed  at  system- 
atic benevolence,  have  come  to  different  conclusions 
as  to  the  proportion  which  they  ought  to  give  ;  and, 
perhaps,  each  one  to  a  correct  conclusion,  in  his  par- 
ticular circumstances.  Zaccheus  gave  half  of  his 
goods  to  the  poor,  besides  restoring  fourfold  his  unjust 


12  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

gains.  The  first  converts  at  Jerusalem,  to  meet  their 
peculiar  circumstances,  sold  their  possessions  and 
made  distribution  of  the  avails,  as  every  man  had 
need.  Paul  repeatedly  intimates  that  he  had  suf- 
fered the  loss  of  all  things.  Others  have  adopted 
plans  similar,  in  the  main,  to  that  of  Mr.  Cobb,  al- 
ready cited.  Others,  after  paying  what  has  been 
needful  for  a  most  economical  support,  have  given  all 
their  income.  John  Wesley  is  an  example.  "  When 
his  income  was  £30  a  year,  he  lived  on  £28,  and 
gave  away  £2  ;  the  next  year  his  income  was  £60, 
and  still  living  on  £28,  he  had  £32  to  give.  The 
fourth  year  raised  his  income  to  £120,  and  steadfast 
to  his  plan,  the  poor  got  £92."  Others,  again,  have 
given  a  tenth  of  the  gross  amount  of  their  receipts. 

Such  is  the  scheme  of  Christian  beneficence  de- 
vised in  heaven  and  enjoined  by  inspired  wisdom. 
Let  every  man  consider  that  in  neglecting  it,  he  sets 
at  naught  the  authority  and  the  wisdom  of  God. 
Men  may  deride  it ;  and  so  it  is  written  of  one  of 
our  Lord's  many  discourses  on  the  right  use  of  prop- 
erty, "  The  Pharisees,  who  were  covetous,  heard  these 
things,  and  they  derided  him." 


REDUCED  TO  PRACTICE.  13 

CHAPTER  II. 

PEINCIPLES  WHICH  G-UIDE    IN  REDUCINa 
THE   SCRIPTURAL  PLAN  TO  PRACTICE. 

We  now  suppose  that  the  child  of  God,  convinced 
that  the  foregoing  is  the  scriptural  plan  of  benefi- 
cence, has  retired  to  his  closet  solemnly  to  adopt  this 
plan,  and  to  determine  the  details  of  its  application 
to  himself.  We  direct  his  attention  to  three  princi- 
ples which  should  guide  him. 

1 .  The  aim  of  all  business  must  he  to  glorify 
God.  This  aim  must  give  simplicity  and  unity  to 
the  entire  life.  Property  is  to  be  sought,  not  as  the 
chief  end,  but  as  a  means  of  doing  good.  The  Chris- 
tian is  not  to  ask,  "  What  part  of  my  income  shall  I 
consecrate  to  God's  service  ?"  By  the  very  act  of 
becoming  a  Christian,  he  consecrated  all  to  God's 
service  in  doing  good.  He  has  only  to  ask  what  part 
he  must  devote  to  this  particular  way  of  serving 
God— charitable  gifts — in  order  that  his  whole  prop- 
erty may  accomplish  most  for  God's  glory.  He  is 
to  remember,  that  the  same  principle  is  to  regulate 
every  step  in  the  conduct  of  business,  every  new  en- 
terprise, every  investment,  every  expenditure ;  that 
he  is  not  at  liberty  to  appropriate  a  dollar  in  any 
way,  except  as  he  can  see  that  by  so  appropriating 
it  he  can  do  most  to  glorify  God.  He  is  not  to  think 
of  setting  aside  a  certain  proportion  for  God,  and  do- 


14  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

ing  what  he  pleases  with  the  rest ;  he  is  to  devote 
all  to  God's  service,  and  expend,  invest,  or  give  it,  in 
such  proportions  as  will  effect  most  for  that  end. 

The  law  of  systematic  benevolence,  therefore,  does 
not  forbid  spending  money  on  ourselves,  educating 
children,  laying  aside  something  for  the  future.  It 
does  not  forbid  acquiring  property  ;  we  may  make 
the  five  pounds,  ten.  We  are  even  required  so  to  do, 
serving  God  in  the  act ;  ' '  not  slothful  in  business, 
serving  the  Lord."  But  no  act  of  acquiring  or  spend- 
ing money  can  be  justified,  unless  it  appears  that  by 
it  most  can  be  accomplished  for  God's  glory. 

The  Bible  everywhere  exhibits  business  as  wholly 
subservient  to  this  great  end.  "  "Whether  ye  eat,  or 
drink,  or  whatsoever  ye  do,  do  all  to  the  glory  of 
God."  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God."  It 
teaches  that  Christians  are  stewards,  having  nothing 
but  the  talents  which  God  has  intrusted  to  them  to 
be  increased  for  him.  The  requirement,  "  Sell  that 
ye  have  and  give  alms,"  the  similar  direction  given 
by  Christ  to  the  young  ruler,  cannot  mean  less  than 
that  all  worldly  business  and  possessions  are  to  be 
entirely  subservient  to  doing  good. 

Benevolence,  then,  must  be  not  only  systematic, 
but  systematizing,  pervading  and  regulating  the  whole 
business.  How  is  it  possible  to  be  seeking  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,  when,  practically,  the  controlling 
aim  .of  all  the  transactions  of  business  is  to  make 
money ;   when  giving  to  the  treasury  of  the  Lord 


REDUCED  TO  PRACTICE.  15 

is  only  occasional  and  secondary,  seldom  occupying 
the  thoughts  ;  called  forth,  perhaps,  only  by  solicita- 
tion ;  trifling,  it  may  be,  in  amount ;  and  determined 
only  by  the  impulse  or  convenience  of  the  moment  ? 
It  is  as  if  the  steward  of  an  estate  should  devote  its 
income  to  himself,  making  only  an  occasional  and 
trifling  gift  to  the  family  of  the  absent  owner,  nay, 
leaving  its  members  to  suffer  without  caring  for  their 
wants.  It  is  reversing  the  sentiment  of  the  humble 
suppliant,  "  The  dogs  eat  of  the  crumbs  which  fall 
from  their  master's  table,"  and  giving  the  crumbs  to 
the  master,  tl^hile  the  dogs  eat  at  the  table. 

In  view  of  this  principle,  let  the  Christian  decide 
what  part  of  his  income  the  promotion  of  God's  glory 
and  the  advancement  of  his  cause  require  him  to  ex- 
pend on  himself  and  his  family,  what  part  to  invest, 
what  part  to  give. 

2.  The  Christian  will  recognize  the  duty  of  self- 
denial.  Does  he  say,  "  I  give  all  that  is  conven- 
ient?" This  language  has  widely  different  mean- 
ings on  different  lips.  Some  do  not  find  it  cojivenient 
to  dispense  with  the  most  costly,  or  even  the  most 
hurtful  luxuries.  Some  do  not  find  it  convenient  to 
give  half  as  much  in  a  year  as  they  spend  on  a  sin- 
gle article  of  luxury,  or  in  the  indulgence  of  a  single 
pernicious  habit.  The  Bible  does  not  say,  "Do 
good  as  much  as  is  convenient,"  but,  "  as  much  as 
in  you  is."  The  necessity  of  self  denial  is  too  plainly 
revealed  to  allow  the  thought  that  the  scriptural 


16  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

law  of  benevolence  can  be  obeyed  without  it.  It  is 
not  only  reiterated  in  direct  commands,  but  is  woven 
into  all  the  inspired  teachings  respecting  the  Chris- 
tian life.  The  spirit  that  breathed  on  the  cross  is 
presented  as  the  spirit  which  must  breathe  through 
the  whole  church.  If  the  church  is  "the  body  of 
Christ,"  Christ's  heart  beats  within  it,  sending  to  the 
remotest  limb  the  throbbings  of  its  own  love.  He 
who  is  not  thus  "  in  Christ,"  and  imbued  with  his 
self-sacrificing  love,  is  none  of  his.  The  Christian, 
then,  must  make  his  appropriations  to  charity  in  the 
spirit  which  says,  "What  thmgs  were  gain  to  me, 
those  I  counted  loss  for  Christ." 

Here,  however,  every  Christian  is  left  to  the  decis- 
ion of  his  own  mind,  guided  by  the  rules  and  ani- 
mated by  the  love  of  Christ,  The  following  fact 
shows  Wesley's  practice:  "In  1775  the  Accountant- 
General  sent  him  a  copy  of  the  excise  order  for  the 
return  of  plate :  '  Hev,  sir,  as  the  commissioners  can- 
not doubt  but  you  have  plate  for  which  you  have 
hitherto  neglected  to  make  entry,  etc' — to  which  he 
wrote  this  memorable  answer  :  '  Sir,  I  have  two  sil- 
ver tea-spoons  at  London,  and  two  at  Bristol,  This 
is  all  the  plate  which  I  have  at  present,  and  I  shall 
not  buy  any  more  while  so  many  around  me  want 
bread.'  "  Normand  Smith  of  Hartford,  deeming  his 
house  too  expensive  to  be  consistent  with  his  rules  of 
Christian  benevolence,  determined  to  sell  it.  An  ac- 
count was  published  in  the  newspapers  a  few  years 


REDUCED  TO  PRACTICE.  17 

since  of  a  man  who  lived  in  a  garret,  on  bread  and 
water,  that  he  might  have  the  more  to  give.  The 
writer  knows  a  minister  and  his  wife  who  hved 
without  many  of  the  comforts  of  hfe,  for  the  same 
oljject.  Admit  that  some  have  gone  to  an  extreme. 
But  is  not  this  nobler  and  more  acceptable  to  God, 
than  to  go  to  the  extreme  of  indulging  self,  without 
any  denial  ?  And  where  one  goes  to  an  extreme  in 
this  direction,  are  there  not  thousands  in  the  church- 
es who  have  never  learned  by  experience  what  self- 
denial  is  ?  And  which  is  most  like  Him  who  had 
not  where  to  lay  his  head?  As  to  the  extent  to 
which  self  denial  must  be  carried,  "let  every  man  be 
fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind;"  as  to  its  necessity 
to  full  compliance  with  the  scriptural  rule  of  benev- 
olence, let  every  one  heed  the  Saviour's  words,  "  If 
any  man  will  come  after  me,  let  him  deny  himself." 
And  it  is  to  be  supposed  that  the  rich  are  not  excused 
from  the  duty,  nor  debarred  from  the  privilege,  more 
than  the  poor. 

3.  The  Christian  will  regard  his  charities,  how- 
ever great,  as  the  discharge  of  an  obligation.  The 
right  to  give  or  withhold  at  pleasure  belongs  to  God 
alone.  To  his  creatures  God  says,  "  Ye  are  not  your 
own  ;"  and  emphatically  to  his  ransomed  children, 
"  Ye  are  not  your  own ;  ye  are  bought  with  a  price." 
The  very  beginning  of  the  religious  life  is  an  act  of 
entire  consecration  to  God.  The  Christian's  profes- 
sion is  a  constant  proclamation  to  the  world,  that  the 

Soiip,  Bea«v. 


18  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

claim  of  Him  who  bought  him  with  his  blood,  covers 
his  estate,  his  faculties,  his  all.  "  What  hast  thou 
that  thou  didst  not  receive  ?"  Therefore,  ransomed 
sinner,  whatever  thou  givest,  thou  dost  but  "render 
unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's."  So  Paul  felt : 
"  I  am  debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the  barbari- 
ans." But  why  a  debtor  rather  than  a  giver  ?  Be- 
cause he  was  not  his  own,  but  bought  with  a  price. 
So  are  we  all  debtors  to  the  ignorant,  the  wretched, 
and  depraved  of  whatever  nation ;  and  when  we  pay 
into  the  Lord's  treasury  for  their  benefit,  must  say, 
"  Oh  Lord  our  God,  all  this  store  that  we  have  pre- 
pared cometh  of  thine  hand,  and  is  all  thine  own." 
Hence  the  terrible  declaration  of  God — not  against 
those  who  gave  nothing,  but  against  those  who  gave 
what  was  of  inferior  value — "Ye  have  robbed  God." 


MOTIVES  OF  PIETY.  19 


CHAPTER   III. 

DUTY  OF  SYSTEMATIC  BENEVOLENCE  INFER 
RED  FROM   THE    NATURE   AND  MOTIVES   OF 
PIETY. 

Piety  begins  with  a  change  of  heart.  The  great- 
er part. of  hfe  is  usually  occupied  with  the  acquisi- 
tion and  use  of  property.  A  change  of  heart,  if  real, 
cannot  leave  this  principal  part  of  life  unaffected. 
The  subject  of  it  must  be  expected  to  show  that  he 
has  found  a  more  valued  treasure  im  heaven  by  his 
new  aims  in  getting,  his  new  principles  in  using  the 
treasures  of  this  world.  If,  in  that  chief  part  of  life 
occupied  with  gaining  and  using  property,  the  pro- 
fessed subject  of  a  change  consisting  in  placing  the 
affections  on  things  above,  continue  to  show  the  same 
estimate  of  property  as  the  great  end  to  be  sought, 
the  same  eagerness  in  getting,  the  same  tenacity  in 
holding,  the  same  self-seeking  in  using  it,  need  it 
be  surprising  that  his  worldly  competitors  doubt  the 
reality  of  the  change?  Must  not  Christ  repel  such 
professors  with  his  own  searching  question,  "What 
do  ye  more  than  others  ?"  There  is  nothing  less 
than  absurdity  in  the  idea  of  a  change,  in  which  the 
man  becomes  "  a  new  creature  in  Christ,"  in  which 
"old  things  are  passed  away,  behold,  all  things  are 
become  new,"  which  yet  does  not  carry  a  new  spirit 
through  the  business  and  consecrate  the  property  as 


20        SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

well  as  the  heart  to  God — in  which  the  theory  is 
all  for  the  glory  of  God  ;  the  practice,  all  for  making 
money. 

Religion  is  love.  And  love  is  active.  It  is  as  nat- 
ural for  love  to  act  beneficently,  as  for  a  fountain  to 
flow,  or  a  star  to  shine ;  and  its  action  is  ungrudging, 
unstinted,  delighting  in  toil  for  the  loved  object. 
Witness,  for  instance,  the  toils  of  parental  love. 
Can  love  to  God  and  man  be  the  very  essence  of  the 
character,  while  beneficent  efforts  are  left  to  hazard, 
crowded  into  the  by-corners  of  life,  supplied  by  chip- 
pings  and  remnants?  Can  love  control  the  heart, 
and  not  control  the  action  of  the  life  ? 

Christians  are  laborers  together  ivith  God.  God 
is  always  giving :  if  we  labor  with  him,  we  must  la- 
bor in  his  work ;  we  must  give.  God  is  love ;  if  we 
labor  with  him,  we  must  labor  in  the  work  of  love. 
God  would  form  us  into  his  likeness ;  to  this  end,  we 
are  no  sooner  brought  into  his  kingdom,  than  we  are 
put  to  doing  his  work.  In  revealing  his  will  by  in- 
spired men,  in  the  conversion  of  every  soul,  in  the 
whole  work  of  spreading  the  gospel  through  the 
world,  we  discover  this  sublime  partnership  in  labor 
between  God  and  his  children. 

Behold,  then,  believer,  your  sublime  position,  work- 
ing with  God  in  delivering  the  world  from  ruin.  To 
reclaim  men  to  holiness  is  God's  great  work ;  to  it 
he  has  moulded  his  plans,  and  for  it  ordered  his  prov- 
idence, since  time  began.     May  you  be  a  laborer  with 


MOTIVES  OF  PIETY.  21 

God,  and  make  that  secondary  which  he  regards  as 
first ;  pursue  without  plan,  energy,  or  steadfastness, 
the  object  which  he  seeks  with  a  steadfastness  which 
knows  no  abatement,  a  zeal  which  spares  no  sacri- 
fice, an  outpouring  of  treasure  which  arithmetic  can- 
not calculate  ?  A  laborer  with  God,  and  yet  that 
object  to  which  with  him  the  destiny  of  nations  and 
the  movements  of  heavenly  hosts  are  subordinate,  be 
with  you  secondary  to  money-getting,  to  furniture, 
equipage — a  mere  appendix  to  business  ?  Let  the 
great  fact  possess  your  soul  with  the  fulness  which 
its  reality  demands,  that  you  are  a  laborer  together 
with  God,  and  you  will  lose  sight  of  self  in  the  great- 
ness of  man's  salvation,  and  instead  of  beneficence 
being  an  appendix  to  business,  business  itself  will 
become  but  a  means  of  beneficence. 

The  cross  of  Christ  urges  to  systematic  benevo- 
lence. "Ye  know  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  that  though  he  was  rich,  yet  for  your  sakes 
he  became  poor,  that  ye  through  his  poverty  might 
be  rich."  This  is  one  of  the  most  touching  appeals 
to  Christ's  sufferings .  Yet  Paul  wrote  it  expressly 
as  a  motive  for  taking  up  a  charitable  collection  at 
Corinth.  This  beautiful  sentiment  in  such  a  con- 
nection may  seem  sadly  out  of  place  to  those  who 
are  wont  to  regard  a  charitable  collection  as  an  an- 
noyance; but  it  shows  the  apostolic  view  of  the 
connection  of  this  duty  with  all  that  is  sublime  and 
afiecting  in  the  cross  of  Christ. 


22  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

The  peculiar  motive  of  Christianity  is  expressed 
in  the  affecting  words  so  often  on  the  lips  of  Jesus, 
*•  For  my  sake."  "  Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall 
revile  you,  and  persecute  you,  for  my  sake" — "hated 
of  all  men  for  my  sake" — "hath  left  houses  and 
lands  for  my  sake" — "  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake." 
He  presents  this  motive  as  effectual  to  induce  the 
greatest  sacrifices,  even  of  property  and  life.  And  it 
would  seem  that  a  sinner,  pardoned  through  Christ's 
blood,  could  not,  for  very  shame,  lift  his  eye  to  meet 
the  melting  look  of  his  dying  Saviour,  if  he  felt  not 
the  overcoming  power  of  that  appeal — if  he  could 
net.  Uke  the  apostle,  say,  "I  take  pleasure  in  infirm- 
ities, in  reproaches,  in  necessities,  in  persecutions,  in 
distresses,  for  Christ's  sake."  "  What  things  were 
gain  to  me,  those  I  count  loss  for  Christ." 

In  a  world  so  intensely  selfish,  it  was  needful  that 
the  cross  of  the  divine  Redeemer,  sacrificing  himself 
to  save  transgressors,  should  stand  in  the  centre  of 
the  plan  of  salvation  :  the  first  object  which  greets 
the  eye  of  the  convert,  and  the  last  which  cheers  the 
dying  saint ;  the  source  of  the  Christian's  hope  and 
strength  through  all  his  warfare,  his  joy  on  earth, 
and  the  anticipated  theme  of  his  everlasting  song — 
that  the  great  lesson  of  self-denying,  all-consecrating 
benevolence  may  always  be  before  the  view — that 
with  every  look  at  the  bleeding  Author  of  salvation, 
may  fall  on  the  soul,  with  an  eloquence  too  deep  for 
words,  the  admonition,  "  Forasmuch  as  Christ  hath 


MOTIVES   OF  PIETY.  23 

suffered  for  us  in  the  flesh,  arm  yourselves  likewise 
with  the  same  mind;"  "he  that  saith  he  abideth  in 
Christ,  ought  himself  also  so  to  walk  even  as  he 
walked." 

If  God  himself  were  in  our  circumstances,  how 
Avould  he  measure  his  efforts  for  the  good  of  men  ? 
Receive  the  answer  in  the  conduct  of  Christ,  "  God 
manifest  in  the  flesh."  He  would  sacrifice  his  riches 
and  lay  aside  his  glory;  he  would  consume  all  the 
energies  of  his  earthly  existence  ;  he  would  lay  down 
his  mortal  life,  to  do  them  good.  The  first  promise  of 
the  arch-deceiver  was,  "Ye  shall  be  as  gods" — ye 
shall  become  so  by  gratifying  self  Christ  has  uttered 
the  same  promise,  "  Ye  shall  be  partakers  of  the  di- 
vine nature  ;"  but  ye  shall  become  so  by  denying  self 
"  Gratify  self,  get,  and  ye  shall  be  as  gods,"  is  Sa- 
tan's lie.  "  Deny  self,  give,  and  ye  shall  be  partak- 
ers of  the  divine  nature,"  is  Christ's  truth.  Satan 
has  blinded  mankind  by  this  lie,  so  that  they  look 
for  bliss  and  exaltation  only  by  getting;  Christ  over- 
turns this  whole  scheme,  and  teaches  to  find  godlike 
bliss  and  exaltation  by  giving.  This  is  godlike  in 
man,  to  sacrifice  self  for  the  good  of  others.  That 
was  the  highest  elevation  of  human  nature  when  it 
was  lifted  on  the  cross  in  the  blood  of  its  own  agony 
for  man's  redemption ;  then  human  nature  was  ex- 
alted to  participate  in  the  sublimest  of  all  the  dis- 
plays of  God's  glory.  And  there  is  no  elevation  of 
man  to  the  godlike,  except  as  he  is  elevated  to  the 


24  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

spirit  of  the  cross.  Who  then  can  imagine  that  he 
has  been  made  by  regeneration  a  partaker  of  the 
divine  nature,  if  he  does  not  systematically  devote 
of  his  choicest  treasures,  as  God  hath  prospered  him, 
for  the  good  of  men.  And  how  little  even  that  gift 
appears  in  the  light  of  the  cross ;  how  little  in  con- 
trast with  the  offerings  of  many  who  have  laid  down 
their  lives  for  Christ's  sake  ! 

Thus  systematic  benevolence,  instead  of  being  an 
isolated  and  uninteresting  topic,  is  seen  to  be  a  duty 
based  on  the  very  nature  of  piety,  and  enforced  by  its 
most  affecting  motives. 


SUPERIOR  EFFICIENCY.  25 


CHAPTER  IV. 

SUPERIOR  EFFICIENCY  OF  SYSTEMATIC  BE- 
NEVOLENCE  IN  PROVIDIN&  FUNDS  FOR 
BENEVOLENT  ENTERPRISES. 

System  always  promotes  efficiency.  What  would 
become  of  a  man's  worldly  business,  if  he  managed 
it  without  system,  never -executing  a  plan  or  making 
an  investment  till  solicited,  and  abandoning  labor  to 
the  control  of  impulse  or  convenience  ?  And  can  he 
hope  for  any  better  results  from  a  like  disregard  of 
system  as  a  steward  of  God  ?  From  such  lack  of 
order,  what  but  embarrassment  and  failure  can  result 
to  the  enterprises  of  benevolence  ?  And  what  shall 
we  say  of  those  professors  of  Christ's  religion  who 
show  so  thorough  an  understanding  of  the  necessity 
of  system  in  worldly  business,  so  utter  a  neglect  of 
it  in  their  contributions  to  benevolence  :  who  are  full 
of  forethought  and  anxious  calculation  to  realize  the 
utmost  of  worldly  acquisition ;  deliberate  and  far- 
sighted  in  planning,  cautious  in  executing,  lynx-eyed 
to  discern  an  opportunity  of  gain,  exact  to  the  last 
fraction  in  their  accounts,  but  heedless  and  planless 
in  all  they  do  for  charity  ?  Verily,  "  the  children  of 
this  world  are  wiser  in  their  generation  than  the 
children  of  light;"  but  "the  children  of  light"  show 
no  lack  of  that  wisdom,  till  they  come  to  use  prop- 
erty for  the  benefit  of  others  than  themselves. 
8 


26        SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

Systematic  benevolence  will  usually  dispose  the 
giver  to  increase  his  contributions.  If  a  man  gives 
without  system,  he  will  commonly  give  too  little. 
Under  the  hallowed  influences  of  the  closet,  let  him 
estimate  the  claims  of  a  world  lying  in  wickedness, 
and  the  means  of  benevolence  with  which  God  has 
blessed  him  ;  let  him  ponder  what  amount  of  charity 
would  be  acceptable  to  God  and  is  demanded  by  the 
love  of  Christ ;  and  it  will  be  strange  if  he  is  not  con- 
vinced that  he  ought  to  increase  his  donations. 

It  is  more  conveniejit  to  set  apart  money  for  char- 
ity in  frequent  instalments.  He  who  neglects  to  pro- 
vide for  his  charities  until  the  call  for  them  is  made, 
may  find  it  inconvenient  or  impossible  to  raise  at  the 
time  the  one  dollar,  or  the  hundred  dollars,  or  what- 
ever sum  it  is  his  duty  to  give.  But  had  he  set 
apart  a  proportion  from  his  earnings  as  th6y  were 
received,  he  would  not  be  incommoded  by  giving  the 
sum  required.  Persons  even  in  the  most  moderate 
circumstances,  adopting  the  practice  of  systematic 
benevolence,  are  often  surprised  at  the  amount  they 
can  give  without  serious  inconvenience. 

System  will  enlarge  the  amount  of  money  expend- 
ed hi  beneficence  hy  being  a  barrier  against  the 
temptations  of  selfishness.  Many  a  man  means  to 
answet  the  calls  of  charity,  but  does  not  weekly  or 
monthly  set  apart  a  specific  sum  as  sacred  to  the 
Lord.  Hence,  when  he  sees  some  tempting  article 
of  luxury,  having  by  him  unappropriated  the  money 


SUPERIOR  EFFICIENCY.  27 

which  should  have  been  the  Lord's,  he  buys  it ; 
when  some  tempting,  though  perhaps  hazardous  in- 
vestment presents,  having  the  money  by  him  unap- 
propriated, he  invests  it.  Thus,  through  lack  of  sys- 
tem, many  sums  in  the  purses  even  of  the  benevo- 
lent are  turned  aside  from  the  Lord's  treasury.  Self- 
interest  has  the  advantage  in  being  beforehand  and 
having  constant  access  to  our  hearts.  Systematic 
charity  helps  to  put  the  interest  of  Christ's  cause  on 
an  equal  footing. 

System  prevents  yielding  to  second  thoughts  and  ■ 
withholding  a  purposed  charity.  Many  a  man,  under 
the  influence  of  a  charity  sermon,  or  of  the  teachings 
of  conscience,  or  of  the  sight  of  distress,  purposes  in 
his  heart  to  give  a  certain  amount.  As  the  subject 
first  strikes  his  unbiassed  judgment,  such  an  amount 
seems  not  too  large  for  the  urgency  of  the  case  and 
his  own  means.  But  selfishness  steps  in  and  argues 
the  point ;  it  presents  to  the  man  his  various  wants, 
and  pretty  soon  convinces  him  that  the  purposed  sum 
is  quite  too  much  ;  then,  forgetting  Paul's  injunction, 
"Every  man,  according  as  he  purposeth  in  his  heart, 
so  let  him  give,"  he  gives  little  or  nothing.  But  let 
a  man  have  a  fixed  plan,  in  accordance  with  which 
he  consecrates  a  fixed  proportion  to  the  Lord  as  reg- 
ularly as  he  meets  his  notes  when  they  fall  due,  or 
pays  the  expenses  of  his  family,  and  the  matter  is 
settled.  Here  is  a  breastwork  by  God's  grace  im 
pregnable  against  all  the  pleading  of  selfishness. 


28  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

System  increases  the  contributions  by  maki7ig  it 
more  pleasant  to  give.  When  a  man  has  no  sys- 
tem of  charity,  every  call  to  give  is  unprovided  for  : 
if  he  comply,  he  must  give  from  money  which  he 
was  expecting  to  spend  otherwise ;  it  is  so  much 
taken  from  what  he  had  reckoned  his  own ;  it  seems 
so  much  dead  loss.  Hence,  every  donation  chafes 
him ;  he  is  tempted  to  make  it  as  small  as  possible  ; 
giving  comes  to  be  surrounded  in  his  mind  with  un- 
pleasant associations  ;  he  often  looks  back  with  re- 
gret, when  he  gives  any  thing,  that  he  gave  so  much ; 
and  the  call  of  charity  becomes  repulsive.  But  when 
he  systematizes  his  charities  and  at  stated  times  sets 
apart  to  benevolence  a  sum  proportioned  to  his  in- 
come, he  no  longer  reckons  that  consecrated  money  as 
his  own,  or  depends  on  it  for  the  supply  of  any  want. 
When  the  call  of  charity  is  heard,  he  is  not  obliged  to 
take  from  what  he  had  reckoned  his  own,  but  from 
what  was  already  consecrated  to  the  Lord.  He  can 
give  both  largely  and  cheerfully,  and  with  no  draw- 
back from  the  blessedness  of  doing  good. 

System  removes  many  common  excuses  of  selfish- 
ness for  "withholding  more  than  is  meet:"  "I  have 
lately  given  to  another  cause ;"  "  I  give  as  much 
as  convenient ;"  "I  have  so  many  expenses ;"  "I 
give  as  much  as  others." 

System  increases  the  amount  of  charities  hy  form- 
ing habits  of  benevolence.  From  earhest  life,  habits 
of  gaining   and    using    money    for  self  have    been 


SUPERIOR  EFFICIENCY.  29 

strengthening,  and  these  consolidated  hahits  have 
never  been  overcome.  Even  in  the  church  the  cov- 
etous use  of  property  is  too  generally  the  habit,  the 
benevolent  use  of  it  only  an  occasional  act.  And  it 
is  but  dimly  apprehended  that  the  gospel  requires  it 
to  be  otherwise.  Hence,  the  gifts  of  the  church  are 
exceedingly  stinted.  To  remedy  this  evil,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  make  the  beneficent  use  of  property  the  habit 
of  the  Christian's  life,  and  thus  turn  to  the  advantage 
of  Christ's  cause  that  law  of  habit  which  has  been  all 
against  it.  To  do  this,  there  must  be  systematic  be- 
nevolence. It  were  the  extreme  of  folly  to  think  of 
subduing  these  consolidated  habits  by  desultory  ef- 
forts— to  send  up  now  and  then  a  platoon  of  light 
troops  against  these  most  massive  and  well-appointed 
fortifications  of  selfishness.  We  must  approach  them 
by  well-concerted,  persevering  siege,  till  they  fall  into 
our  hands  and  the  guns  are  turned  against  the  foe. 
Mere  occasional,  unsystematized  donations  scarcely 
make  a  perceptible  impression  in  subduing  selfish  and 
forming  benevolent  habits.  But  when  beneficence 
is  systematized,  the  habit  of  doing  good  is  formed,  it 
moulds  the  whole  life,  it  becomes  second  nature,  and 
shows  in  all  its  results  its  efficacious  vigor. 

These  considerations  show  the  duty  of  Christian 
parents  to  train  their  children  to  the  habit  of  system- 
atically making  a  benevolent  use  of  money. 

One  of  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  way  of  ob- 
taining an  increase  of  funds,  is  found  in  another  influ- 


30  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

ence  of  this  same  law  of  habit.  Of  those  who  con- 
tribute regularly  to  particular  causes,  and  thus  have 
made  an  approach  to  system,  a  large  portion  are  in 
the  habit  of  giving  from  year  to  year  about  the  same 
sum.  The  same  twenty -five  cents,  the  same  dollar, 
or  five  dollars,  stands  from  year  to  year  against  their 
names.  The  wants  of  benevolent  enterprises  in- 
crease, the  property  of  the  giver  increases,  but  the 
contribution  is  stereotyped.  The  attempt  to  increase 
this  amount  breaks  up  their  settled  habits  of  thought 
and  action.  They  have  never  thought  that  perhaps 
Christ  requires  a  revision  of  their  whole  plan  of  be- 
nevolence. The  adoption  of  the  divine  plan  of  fre- 
quent and  proportionate  ajipropriations  would  remove 
this  difficulty. 

It  must  be  added,  that  systematic  benevolence  may 
be  expected  by  God's  blessing  to  increase  the  giver's 
means  of  usefulness.  But  this  thought  will  be  re- 
served for  a  more  extended  examination  in  another 
chapter. 

In  these  various  ways  the  scriptural  system  increas- 
es the  funds  of  benevolence.  Were  it  universally 
adopted  by  the  churches,  nothing  but  the  experiment 
would  show  how  immense  would  be  the  resulting 
increase.  Without  expense  of  collecting  agencies, 
thousands  in  the  churches  who  now  give  nothing, 
would  begin  to  give ;  and  a  permanent  and  growing 
increase  would  be  realized  at  once  from  those  who 
have  given  occasionally.     Then  would  the  channels 


I 


SUPERIOR  EFFICEINCY.  31 

of  benevolence  be  like  "  the  river  of  God  wliich  is 
full  of  water,"  and  the  waters  of  life  issuing  from 
the  sanctuary  with  their  healing  power,  would  flow 
as  the  prophet  saw  in  vision,  ever  swelling  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth. 

The  following  facts  confirm  the  argument  of  this 
chapter.  In  1844,  Rev.  Dr.  Bajrd  received,  in  two 
payments,  thirty-eight  dollars  for  some  benevolent 
cause,  from  "  one  of  the  poor  disciples  of  Jesus;"  in 
acknowledging  which  he  says,  "  The  donor  of  it 
commenced  giving,  in  a  strictly  systematic  manner, 
the  tenth  part  of  all  the  money  which  he  earned 
from  the  time  of  his  conversion,  and  through  God's 
blessing  he  has  been  enabled  to  give  sums  from  time 
to  time,  to  many,  if  not  all  the  great  enterprises  for 
building  up  the  kingdom  of  our  Lord,  varying  from 
five  to  twenty -five  dollars." 

There  is  a  farmer  in  one  of  the  retired  mountain 
towns  of  Massachusetts,  who  began  business  on  his 
farm  in  1818,  being  six  hundred  dollars  in  debt.  He 
began  with  the  determination  to  pay  the  debt  in  six 
years,  in  equal  instalments,  and  to  give  all  his  net 
income,  if  any  remained,  above  those  instalments. 
The  income  of  the  first  year,  however,  was  expended 
in  purchasing  stock  and  other  necessaries  for  his  farm. 
In  the  six  next  years  he  paid  off  the  debt,  and  hav- 
ing abandoned  the  intention  of  ever  being  any  richer, 
he  has  ever  since  given  his  entire  income,  after  sup- 
porting his  family  and  thoroughly  educating  his  six 


32  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENOE. 

children.  During  all  this  period  he  has  lived  with 
the  strictest  economy,  and  every  thing  pertaining  to 
his  house,  table,  dress,  and  equipage  has  been  in  the 
most  simple  style ;  and  though  he  has  twice  been  o 
member  of  the  state  senate,  he  conscientiously  re 
tains  this  simplicity  in  his  mode  of  life.  The  farm 
is  rocky  and  remote  from  the  village,  and  his  whole 
property,  real  and  personal,  would  not  exceed  in 
value  three  thousand  dollars.  Yet  sometimes  he  has 
been  enabled  to  give  from  $200  to  $300  in  a  year. 

Let  it  be  further  considered  in  this  connection, 
that  some  feasible  plan  of  enlarging  the  funds  of 
henevole7ice  must  be  adopted,  in  order  to  realize  the 
hopes  of  the  churches  from  their  missionary  enter- 
prises. This  is  apparent  from  the  difficulty  of  sus- 
taining these  enterprises  on  their  present  scale.  This 
deficiency  is  not  owing  to  a  -want  of  means  in  the 
church.  There  is  money  in  profusion  for  railroads, 
manufactories,  any  enterprise  which  promises  a  re- 
turn to  self  But  where  is  the  money  for  the  Lord  ? 
"  The  great  current  of  Christian  property  isas  yet 
undiverted  from  its  worldly  channel.  The  scanty 
rills  of  charity  which  at  present  water  the  garden 
of  the  Lord,  and  the  ingenuity  and  effort  employed 
to  bring  them  there,  compared  with  the  almost 
undiminished  tide  of  selfish  expenditure  which  still 
holds  on  its  original  course,  remind  one  of  the  slen- 
der rivulets  which  the  inhabitants  of  the  East  raise 
from  a  river  by  mechanical  force,  to  water  their 


SUPERIOR  EFFICIENCY.  33 

thirsty  gardens ;  the  mighty  current  meanwhile, 
without  exhibiting  any  sensible  diminution  of  its 
waters,  sweeping  on  in  its  ample  and  ancient  bed." 

The  aggregate  of  gifts  from  its  members  to  the 
church  was  probably  larger  in  the  times  of  its  great- 
est corruption  than  now.  When  it  was  believed  that 
salvation  might  be  bought  by  charity,  wealth  from 
the  poor  and  the  rich  was  lavished  on  churches  and 
monasteries.  But  as,  in  the  advance  of  the  Refor- 
mation, charities  with  tliis  motive  have  ceased,  the 
churches  have  failed  adequately  to  bring  in  the  gifts 
of  gratitude  and  love  in  their  stead.  It  should  make 
the  ears  of  him  that  heareth  it  to  tingle,  that  in  this 
boasted  age  of  progress,  this  nineteenth  century,  less 
is  probably  bestowed  in  charity  by  the  Protestant 
churches  to  spread  the  true  gospel  through  the  world, 
than  was  given  in  the  darkest  ages  to  heap  up  the 
treasures  of  the  church  of  Rome — that  the  love  of 
Christ  constrains  to  less  valuable  gifts  than  the  arts 
and  deceptions  of  a  corrupt  priesthood. 

But  the  church  is  aiming  at  the  conversion  of  the 
world.  It  is  plain  as  sunUght  that  the  world  cannot 
be  supphed  with  the  means  of  grace  without  an 
immense  enlargement  of  these  operations.  It  was 
this  contrast  between  the  greatness  of  the  enterprise 
which  Christians  profess  to  prosecute,  and  the  little- 
ness of  the  means  which  they  devote  to  it,  that  wrung 
from  the  godly  Abeel  the  exclamation  respecting  our 
missionary  work,  "  If  the  great  God  could  despise 

Scrip  Benev, 


34        SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

his  creatures,  it  would  be  despicable  in  his  sight." 
There  must  be  some  way  devised  of  realizing  such 
enlargement,  if  the  world  is  to  be  converted.  Nor 
is  the  expectation  of  realizing  it  vain.  The  scrip- 
tural system  of  benevolence,  generally  adopted,  would 
realize  it  without  embarrassment  to  the  church. 

Let  it  also  be  considered,  that  when  God  by  his 
provideftce  proclaims,  "  Behold,  I  have  set  before  you 
an  open  door,"  "  he  openeth,  and  no  man  shutteth  " 
Then,  if  his  church  will  enter,  no  obstacles  or  opposi- 
tion can  prevent  her  triumph.  But  if  his  people 
will  not  enter,  presently  the  door  is  shut ;  and  '*  he 
shutteth,  and  no  man  openeth."  Ages  may  pass  be- 
fore, in  the  revolving  cycles  of  his  providence,  he  will 
open  it  again.  And  when  thus  shut,  the  costliest 
labors  of  his  church  are  labors  where  God  is  not. 
One  day  God  opens  Canaan  to  the  Israelites  and 
urges  them  to  go  up,  assuring  them  that  the  Anaks 
and  the  cities  walled  and  great  shall  not  retard  them. 
They  will  not  go.  Next  day  they  are  all  eagerness 
to  go,  but  the  door  is  shut ;  the  pillar  of  cloud 
moves  not- — they  go  up  only  to  perish  before  their 
foes.  All  history  demonstrates  this  principle — de- 
monstrates, that  as  we  must  follow  God's  movements 
in  the  circling  seasons,  would  we  reap  in  harvest ;  so, 
in  the  enterprises  of  benevolence,  we  must  not  fall 
behind  the  workings  of  his  providence,  would  we 
achieve  success.  When  God  in  his  own  spring-time 
drives  the  ploughshare  through  the  nations,  as  with 


SUPERIOR  EFFICIENCY.  35 

such  startling  energy  he  of  late  has  done,  then  must 
his  people  cast  in  the  seed  of  truth ;  lest,  neglecting 
it,  they  be  compelled  to  fruitless  toil  till  another 
spring-time  returns.  And  when  the  time  is  come  to 
set  the  fore-front  of  liberty  and  Christianity  face  to 
face  with  the  hoary  forms  of  Asiatic  despotism  and 
idolatry — when  God  reveals  from  the  bowels  of  the 
earth  the  treasure  which  he  had  kept  hid  for  this 
very  juncture,  and  calls  a  population  together  from 
every  land,  and  a  nation  is  born  in  a  day — then  must 
his  church  bind  the  new-born  state  with  the  sweet 
influences  of  religion,  and  guide  it  to  the  advance- 
ment of  piety  in  the  earth,  or  it  will  lift  its  young 
and  giant  energies  to  smite  her.  God's  providence 
never  stands  still.  His  church  must  move  with  it, 
if  she  would  move  effectively — if  even  she  would 
avoid  disaster.  Hence,  the  necessity  of  adopting 
some  mode  of  increasing  promptly  and  efficiently  the 
contributions  of  the  church,  so  as  to  improve  at  once 
the  precious  opportunities  which  God  opens. 

It  only  remains  to  add,  that  the  jjrojohecies  foretell 
that,  in  accomplishing  the  renovation  of  the  world, 
an  increase  of  appropriations  to  God's  treasury,  like 
what  has  been  urged,  will  take  place.  "  The  daugh- 
ter of  Tyre  shall  be  there  with  a  gift ;  the  rich 
among  the  people  shall  entreat  thy  favor."  "  The 
wealth  of  all  the  heathen  round  about  shall  be  gath- 
ered together,  gold,  and  silver,  and  apparel,  in  great 
abundance.     In  that  day  shall  there  be  upon  the 


36       SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

bells  of  the  horses,  Holiness  to  the  Lord."  "  Sure- 
ly the  isles  shall  wait  for  me,  and  the  ships  of  Tar- 
shish  first,  to  bring  thy  sons  from  far,  their  silver 
and  their  gold  with  them,  to  the  Holy  One  of  Israel." 
*'  I  will  shake  all  nations,  and  the  Desire  of  all  na- 
tions shall  come.  The  silver  is  mine,  and  the  gold 
is  mine,  saith  the  Lord."  Psalm  45  :  12  ;  Zechariah 
14  :  14,  20  ;  Isaiah  60  :  9  ;  Haggai  2  :  7,  8. 

Thus  the  necessities  of  benevolent  societies,  the 
claims  of  a  ruined  world,  the  indications  of  Provi- 
dence, and  the  predictions  of  the  Bible,  unite  in  de- 
manding a  great  increase  of  benevolent  contributions. 
These  contributions,  as  now  usually  conducted,  war- 
rant no  hope  of  realizing  this  increase.  But  the 
general  adoption  of  the  scriptural  plan  of  frequent, 
systematic,  and  proportionate  charities,  will  easily 
meet  the  demand. 


ENLARGES  MEANS  OF  GIVING.  37 

CHAPTEU   V. 

TENDENCY  OF  SYSTEMATIC  BENEVOLENCE 
TO  SECURE  GOD'S  BLESSING  ON  BUSINESS, 
AND   TO  ENLARGE   THE   MEANS  OF   GIVING. 

This  is  a  subject  of  diiRculty,  yet  of  importance. 
There  is  danger  of  extravagant  theories  on  the  one 
hand,  and  on  the  other,  of  an  unbelief  which  shuts  God 
out  of  the  daily  business,  and  practically  denies  that 
"  godliness  has  the  promise  of  the  life  that  now  is." 

k  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  systematic  benevo- 
lence will  insure  wealth.  Wealth  is,  in  God's  judg- 
ment, too  cheap  a  gift  to  be  made  the  reward  of  his 
servants. 

"  Wealth  on  the  vilest  often  is  bestowed, 
To  show  its  vileness  in  the  sight  of  God." 

Multiplied  as  are  God's  warnings  of  the  dangers 
attending  wealth  and  the  love  of  it,  and  his  exhorta- 
tions to  set  the  affections  above,  it  would  be  prepos- 
terous to  suppose  that  he  offers  wealth  as  the  reward 
of  obedience — the  gratification  of  cupidity  as  the  re- 
ward for  denying  it.  And  he  whose  heart  is  on  a 
better  portion,  whose  longings  for  God  and  holiness 
forbid  his  finding  satisfaction  with  any  thing  less 
than  being  with  God  and  like  him,  would  feel  it  the 
bitterest  mockery  to  be  turned  off  with  the  promise 
of  riches  as  his  reward. 

But  there  are  various  ivays  in  wJiich  systematic 


88  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

heneficence  tends,  to  promote  prosperity .  It  promotes 
industry,  energy,  and  enterprise.  The  man  has 
placed  before  himself  a  lofty  object,  suited  to  draw- 
out  all  his  energies.  Henceforth  he  is  no  trifler,  but 
an  earnest  man,  sharing  in  the  very  sentiments  of 
e?irth's  purest  and  greatest  ones.  The  grand  idea  of 
toiling  to  rescue  the  world  from  sin  never  mastered 
a  man's  soul  without  enlarging  it,  without  stimulat- 
ing all  his  faculties  to  unprecedented  vigor,  unfolding 
resources  not  imagined  to  be  in  him,  and  producing  a 
concentration  and  perseverance  of  action,  which  can- 
not fail  of  realizing  great  results.  An  account  was 
published  some  years  ago  of  two  shoemakers  whose 
hearts  had  begun  to  glow  with  zeal  for  the  salva- 
tion of  men.  The  elder  proposed  to  the  younger  to  fit 
himself  to  preach,  promising  to  support  him  by  his 
labor.  The  proposal  was  accepted  ;  the  promise  was 
kept.  The  sublime  purpose  which  had  mastered  that 
man's  soul,  and  which  surrounded  his  humble  shop 
with  a  grandeur  that  never  ennobled  worldly  great- 
ness, gave  him  an  energy  and  industry  which  enabled 
him  to  educate  his  companion,  and  to  sustain  him  as 
he  went  out  to  preach  to  the  destitute.  "When  Chris- 
tendom shall  be  full  of  missionary  merchants,  farmers, 
and  mechanics,  plying  their  business  with  the  sub- 
lime aim  of  saving  mankind  from  sin,  no  doubt  it 
will  be  full  of  energy  and  industry  unsurpassed. 

Nor  does  the  practice  of  scriptural  beneficence 
stimulate  the  active  powers  alone.     It  promotes  so 


ENLARGES  MEAIXS  OF   GIVING.  39 

hrtcty  ajid  economy.  With  an  object  so  glorious  in 
full  possession  of  his  soul,  the  man  will  have  no  time 
nor  money  for  gratifying  either  vicious  or  luxurious 
desires.  What  others  waste  on  dress,  delicacies, 
oquipage,  and  show,  he  will  save  for  the  Lord.  He 
finds,  in  advancing  the  cause  to  which  he  is  wedded, 
a  gratification,  compared  with  wdiich  the  daintiest 
gratifications  of  selfishness  are  insipid. 

Such  a  course  attracts  the  favor  of  the  good,  wins 
their  confidence,  and  if  the  man  be  poor,  or  a  youth- 
ful beginner,  their  friendship  gains  him  employment 
and  otherwise  promotes  his  interests.  Besides,  be- 
ing thrown  into  company  with  such,  he  avoids  the 
temptations  of  evil  associates. 

The  Jiabits  of  fidelity  to  his  trust,  of  icatch fulness, 
system,  and  exactness,  which  systematic  benevolence 
forms,  are  the  very  habits  to  win  for  a  young  man 
respect,  employment,  and  friends,  and  to  lead  to  a 
judicious  management  of  business  through  life. 

Systematic  benevolence  tends  to  restrain  from 
hazardous  adventures.  In  prosperous  times,  when 
business  is  brisk  and  its  returns  speedy  and  large, 
men  become  discontented  with  slow  and  steady  gains ; 
they  "make  haste  to  be  rich "  and  "fall  into  a  snare ;" 
they  become  inflated  with  a  rash  confidence  ;  they 
rush  into  hazardous  and  ruinous  adventures  and 
speculations  ;  or  the  ostentatious  desire  of  displaying 
a  large  business,  tempts  to  an  enlargement  beyond 
their  means,  and  to  consequent  ruin.     But  when  a 


40  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

man  has  consecrated  his  business  and  its  gains  to  the 
Lord,  according  to  the  scriptural  law  of  benevolence, 
the  feverish  haste  to  be  rich  abates,  and  he  is  less 
tempted  to  dangerous  speculations.  Accustomed  to 
do  business  with  a  sense  of  constant  dependence  on 
God,  he  is  not  puffed  up  with  rash  confidence  by 
temporary  prosperity.  Accustomed  to  determine 
every  enterprise  with  prayerful  seeking  God's  will, 
and  to  regard  property  as  sacred  to  his  service,  he 
will  not  thoughtlessly  risk  the  Lord's  money  in  haz- 
ardous adventures.  Absorbed  with  the  grand  desire 
of  aiding  Christ's  cause,  he  will  be  in  little  danger  of 
ostentatious  but  unsafe  expansion.  Thus,  *'  he  that 
considereth  the  poor,  shall  be  blessed  upon  the  earth ;" 
but  "  he  that  hasteth  to  be  rich,  considereth  not  that 
poverty  shall  come  upon  him." 

It  may  be  added  that  benevolence,  in  an  impor- 
tant sense,  identifies  the  giver  ivith  Christ's  inter- 
ests,  and  therefore  may  naturally  be  expected  to  se- 
cure Christ's  blessing.  The  Saviour  says,  "  Inasmuch 
as  ye  have  done  it  to  one  of  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me."  He  receives 
kito  his  own  bosom  every  favor  to  his  church,  Nor 
ks  there  any  surer  ground  of  expecting  the  continued 
prosperity  of  an  individual,  a  church,  or  a  nation,  than 
that  by  their  abundant  efforts  for  Christ's  kingdom, 
they  have  identified  themselves  with  his  cause,  and 
are  likely  to  be  carried  on  in  its  triumphs.  The  very 
beast  of  which  it  was  said,  "  The  Lord  hath  need 


ENLARGES   MEANS  OF   GIVING.  41 

of  him,"  had  his  way  strewed  with  palms  and  gar- 
ments, as  it  bore  the  Saviour  to  Jerusalem.  The  in- 
dividual or  the  community  that  gives  abundantly  to 
advance  religion,  is  the  humble  instrument  of  bearing 
the  Saviour  onward  in  his  triumph.  Of  such  it  may 
reverently  be  said,  "  The  Lord  hath  need  of  them  ;" 
and  it  may  reasonably  be  expected  that  their  way 
will  be  made  prosperous  before  them. 

In  these  several  ways  compliance^  with  the  scrip- 
tural law  of  benevolence  may  tend  to  temporal  pros- 
perity. There  may  be  other  ways  known  only  to 
Him  who  holds  all  the  invisible  lines  of  influence  in 
his  hand. 

If  now  we  open  the  Bible,  tvefind  it  full  of  prom- 
ises of  temporal  blessings  to  the  benevolent.  A  few 
must  serve  as  specimens  of  the  many.  "  Thou  shalt 
surely  give  thy  poor  brother,  and  thy  heart  shall 
not  be  grieved  when  thou  givest  unto  him  ;  because 
that  for  this  thing  the  Lord  thy  God  shall  bless 
thee  in  all  thy  works,  and  in  all  that  thou  puttest 
thy  hand  unto."  Deut.  15  :  10.  "He  that  giveth 
to  the  poor  shall  not  lack."  Prov.  28  :  27.  "  Honor 
the  Lord  with  thy  substance,  and  with  the  first-fruits 
of  all  thine  increase  ;  so  shall  thy  barns  be  filled  with 
plenty,  and  thy  presses  shall  burst  out  with  new 
wine,"  Prov.  3:9.  "  The  liberal  soul  shall  be 
made  fat ;  and  he  that  watereth  shall  be  watered 
also  himself."  Prov.  11  :  25.  "Seek  ye  first  the 
kingdom  of  God,  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added 
9 


42  SCRIPTURAL   BENEVOLENCE. 

unto  you."  Matt.  6  :  33.  "Give,  and  it  shall  be 
given  unto  you;  good  measure,  pressed  down,  and 
shaken  together,  and  running  over,  shall  men  give 
into  your  bosom."  Luke  6  :  38.  And  in  urging  the 
Corinthians  to  give,  Paul  said,  "  He  which  soweth 
sparingly,  shall  reap  also  sparingly ;  and  he  which 
soweth  bountifully,  shall  reap  also  bountifully."  2 
Cor.  9:6.*  To  these  special  promises  the  benevolent 
are  entitled.  Resting  on  them,  they  may  give  with 
the  expectation  that  the  Lord  will  follow  them  with 
his  blessing  and  protection.  They  will  not  fear  want 
while  they  can  hear  God  saying,  "  Trust  in  the  Lord 
and  do  good,  and  verily  thou  shalt  be  fed."  The  same 
Being  who  made  the  Bible,  orders  the  events  of  prov- 
idence ;  and  by  what  he  does  in  the  latter,  he  will 
not  contradict  what  he  says  in  the  former.  The  prin- 
ciples of  the  Bible  fit  into  all  the  windings  of  provi- 
dence, like  a  key  to  all  the  wards  of  a  lock  for  which 
it  was  made.  Hence,  however  obscure  the  plan  of 
Providence,  and  however  uncertain  what  shall  be  on 
the  morrow,  he  that  conducts  his  business  in  con- 
formity to  all  the  rules  of  the  Bible,  may  be  sure  that 
he  has  found  the  track  of  God's  goings  in  the  world, 
and  that,  if  he  continue  to  follow  it  step  by  step,  it 
will  guide  him  in  the  way  of  the  divine  blessing. 

*  See  also  Matt.  6:3,4;  Psa.  37  :  3  ;  Prov.  11:24;  19:  17; 
22:9;  25:21;  24:  11,  12;  13:  7;  Psa.  41  :  1,  2,  3 ;  112:5, 
6,  9  ;  Eccl.  11:1;  Isa.  32  :  8  ;  58  :  6-11 ;  Mai.  3  :  9-12  ;  Dan 
4:27;  2  Cor.  9  :  6,  7,  8,  11. 


ENLARGES  MEANS   OF   GIVING.  43 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  reasoning,  that 
it  is  not  pretended  that  God's  servants  will  be  uni- 
formly led  in  the  way  to  worldly  prosperity,  and  sin- 
ners visited  with  adversity  in  this  life.  The  Bible 
makes  no  such  representation.  It  teaches,  that  in 
this  probation  temporal  benefits  are  scattered  on  the 
good  and  the  evil,  and  refers  us  to  the  other  world 
for  the  solution  of  this  seeming  confusion  of  right  and 
wrong.  "  When  the  wicked  spring  as  the  grass,  and 
when  all  the  workers  of  iniquity  do  flourish,  it  is 
that  they  shall  be  destroyed  for  ever."  It  teaches 
that  wicked  men  are  prospered,  but  "  the  prosperity 
of  fools  shall  destroy  them."  It  teaches  that  God 
sometimes  gives  men  "  their  request,  but  sends  lean- 
ness into  their  souls."  Their  selfish  wishes  are  grati- 
fied ;  but  the  gift  comes,  like  the  quails  to  the  longing 
Israelites,  attended  by  God's  curse.  Their  riches  in- 
crease ;  bat  they  wrap  the  soul  in  the  flames  of  cov- 
etousness,  and  "  eat  as  it  were  fire."  Their  riches 
increase,  but  their  "portion"  is  "in  this  life,  and 
in  the  labor  that  they  take  under  the  sun."  They 
are  rich  as  Dives ;  yet  soon  will  they  be  impover- 
ished to  beg  "  a  drop  of  water  to  cool  their  tongues." 
Thus,  inspiration  explains  these  inequalities,  and 
teaches,  that  "  a  little  which  a  righteous  man  hath, 
is  better  than  the  riches  of  many  wicked ;"  that  Eli- 
jah, fed  by  unclean  birds,  but  receiving  his  portion 
with  God's  smile,  has  no  need  to  envy  Ahab,  cursed 
in  the  riches  of  a  palace  ;  that  Lazarus  the  beggar, 


44 


SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE 


with  a  home  nowhere  but  in  Abraham's  bosom, 
is  more  blessed  than  Dives  with  a  home  nowhere 
but  in  his  own  luxurious  palace.  But  at  the  same 
time  it  teaches,  that  he  who  humbly  uses  what  God 
has  given  for  the  honor  of  the  Giver,  freely  giving 
as  he  has  freely  received,  may  feel  at  peace  in  the 
thought,  that  all  his  business  is  blessed  with  his 
Father's  smile. 

Facts  corroborate  the  foregoing  sentiments.  There 
are,  indeed,  comparatively  few  facts  to  furnish  data 
for  this  argument.  Yet  the  writer  knows  a  consid- 
erable number  of  instances,  in  which  a  greater  or 
less  approach  to  scriptural  benevolence,  has  been 
attended  with  unusual  prosperity.  Mr.  Cobb,  whose 
case  has  been  mentioned,  giving  away  a  quarter, 
then  half,  and  then  three  quarters  of  his  income,  not 
only  became  worth  $50,000  before  the  age  of  thirty- 
six,  but  gave  besides  more  than  $40,000.  Normand 
Smith,  a  saddler  of  Hartford,  Connecticut,  after  prac- 
tising for  years  an  elevated  system  of  benevolence, 
bequeathed  in  charity  $30,000.  An  anonymous 
writer  says  of  himself,  that  he  commenced  business 
and  prosecuted  it  in  the  usual  way,  till  he  lost  $900, 
which  was  all  he  was  worth,  and  found  himself  in 
debt  $1,100.  Being  led  by  his  trials,  through  God's 
grace,  to  trust,  as  he  hoped,  in  Christ,  he,  at  the  age 
of  forty,  determined  to  take  God's  word  for  his  guide 
in  his  business,  and  consecrated  his  earnings  to  the 
Lord.     The  first  year  he  gave  $12.     For  eighteen 


ENLARGES  MEANS  OF  GIVING.  45 

years,  the  amount  has  increased  by  about  25  per 
cent.,  and  the  last  year  he  gave  $850  ;  and  he  says, 
he  did  it  easier  than,  during"  the  first  year,  he  paid  the 
$12.  Besides,  though  with  nothing  but  his  hands 
to  depend  on  when  he  began  this  course,  he  paid  the 
whole  debt  of  $1,100  with  interest,  though  it  took 
him  nine  years  to  do  it.  Jacob  went  out  from  his 
father's  home  "  with  his  staff,"  a  poor  man  ;  but  at 
Bethel  he  vowed  to  give  to  God  the  tenth  of  all  that 
God  should  bestow  on  him.  Commencing  thus,  God 
blessed  hini,  and  in  twenty  years  he  returned  with 
great  riches. 

We  may  also  refer  to  the  history  of  communities, 
in  confirmation  of  the  argument.  When  God  issued 
his  laws  to  the  Jewish  nation,  he  required,  besides 
other  liberal  offerings,  the  tenth  of  all  their  income. 
We  are  not  to  suppose  that  every  specific  regulation 
for  the  Jews  is  the  best  for  all  nations.  But  in  his 
dealings  with  the  Jews,  God  meant  to  illustrate  the 
principles  on  which,  as  to  worldly  affairs,  he  deals 
with  all ;  and  this  is  one  reason  why  their  history  is 
so  minutely  recorded.  Thus,  we  find  the  law  of 
tithes  and  offerings  incorporated  into  their  system  as 
an  exemplification  of  a  universal  principle  in  God's 
dealhigs  with  men.  Many  have  pitied  their  unhap- 
py lot  in  being  compelled  to  give  so  much ;  infidels 
have  delighted  in  the  objection  that  the  wretched 
Jews  were  taxed  so  terribly  for  the  support  of  relig- 
ion.    But  the  All-wise  knew  best  what  regulations 


46  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

would  harmonize  with  the  course  of  his  providence, 
and  prescribed  accordingly.  And  it  ever  proved  that 
the  nine  tenths  were  worth  more  to  them  than  the 
ten  tenths.  If  ever,  to  increase  their  gains,  they 
robbed  God  by  hoarding  the  tenth,  or  by  bringing 
the  lame  and  the  blind,  disaster  and  loss  were  sure  to 
follow.  Say  not  this  was  all  a  miraculous  interposi- 
tion. Inspiration  has  only  lifted  the  veil  here  from 
the  workings  of  that  providence  which,  unseen,  un- 
traced,  is  ever  working  in  the  affairs  of  men  on  the 
same  principles  and  with  the  same  aim.  Say  not, 
either,  that  the  tithe  was  a  positive  institution. 
True  ;  and  as  to  its  specific  form  it  might,  therefore, 
pass  away,  as  it  already  has.  But  Avas  there  ever  a 
positive  institution  of  G-od  not  founded  on  something 
permanent,  either  in  man's  nature  or  God's  scheme 
of  providence  and  grace  ?  Therefore  was  the  law 
of  the  tithe  founded  on  a  principle  as  enduring  as 
God's  government  on  earth  ;  and  as  the  tithe  was  a 
blessing  to  the  Jews,  so  regard  to  that  principle  will 
be  always  a  blessing.  We  may  find  facts  of  the  same 
import  in  modern  times.  Those  churches  which  are 
most  systematic  and  liberal  in  their  contributions, 
are,  without  exception,  the  most  prosperous.  The 
same  is  true  of  nations.  The  history  of  New  Eng- 
land is  a  striking  instance.  The  first  settlers  were 
men  who,  in  a  great  trial  of  affliction,  and  in  deep 
poverty,  abounded  in  the  riches  of  their  liberality,  in 
sustaining  schools,  and  ministers,  and  colleges,  and 


ENLARGES   MEANS   OF   GIVING.  47 

in  laying  deep  a  foundation  for  Christ's  kingdom  in 
this  new  world.  It  is  not  so  fitly  said  that  they  con- 
tributed much,  as  that  they  offered  all  to  Christ. 
And  it  is  admitted  that  New  England  is,  and  in  all 
her  history  has  been  preeminent  in  contributions  and 
efforts  to  sustain  every  benevolent  institution  and  en- 
teiprise.  And  where  is  the  state  or  the  nation  which 
has  ever  possessed  more  of  all  the  elements  of  true 
prosperity  ? 

Bui  an  appeal  to  facts  in  the  liistory  of  churches 
and  communities  must  rest  on  imperfect  data ;  for 
where  is  there  one  in  which  the  efficiency  of  the 
scriptural  law  of  bencA'-olence,  in  developing  and  en- 
larging the  resources  of  benevolence,  has  been  fully 
put  to  the  test  ? 

In  closing  the  argument,  the  thought  may  be  sug- 
gested, that  business,  conducted  as  it  is  on  the  max- 
ims of  selfishness,  when  viewed  as  a  system  in  its 
management  and  results,  presents  a  picture  of  any 
thing  rather  than  of  permanent  and  healthy  pros- 
perity. The  number  of  business  men  who  fail  once 
or  oftener  in  the  course  of  life ;  the  numbers  doing 
business  who,  should  they  pay  up  the  as  yet  unpaid 
debts  of  their  past  lives,  would  strip  themselves  of 
all  or  a  large  part  of  their  present  property  ;  the 
small  proportion  of  those  commencing  mercantile 
life  in  cities,  who,  in  the  final  winding  up  of  their 
affairs,  possess  a  comfortable  independence  ;  the  fact 
that  the  property  of  those  who  die  rich  so  often  proves 


48  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

a  curse  to  their  children,  and  that  so  many  who  are 
born  rich,  die  poor ;  the  periodical  recurrence  of  a 
^'crash'^  in  the  commercial  world;  the  alternation  of 
commercial  prosperity  and  distress,  which  for  genera- 
tions has  marked  the  history  of  business,  realizing 
the  inspired  declaration,  "  He  hath  swallowed  down 
riches,  and  shall  vomit  them  up  again ;"  all  these 
facts  indicate  any  thing  rather  than  a  system  of  busi- 
ness which,  as  a  whole — whatever  may  be  true  of 
individuals — receives  the  smile  and  blessing  of  God  ; 
they  present  evidences  of  the  divine  displeasure  such 
as  might  be  expected  to  mark  a  selfish  and  ungodly 
system,  of  busmess. 

The  discussion  of  this  part  of  the  subject  will  not 
have  been  in  vain,  if  it  help  to  remove  the  impres- 
sion, that  the  rules  of  the  gospel  cannot  be  obeyed  to 
the  last  jot  and  tittle  in  business,  consistently  with 
its  successful  management ;  to  rebuke  the  practical 
atheism  which  shuts  God  out  of  the  details  of  daily 
life ;  to  make  men's  hearts  alive  to  the  thought  that 
the  hand  of  God  is  on  their  ships,  their  merchandise, 
their  cattle,  and  their  shops  ;  that  the  claims  of  his 
law  and  the  promises  of  his  gospel  are  twined  about 
all  the  acts  and  gettings  of  daily  toil,  not  less  than 
about  their  destiny  for  the  life  to  come ;  and  that 
there  is  a  reality  here  on  earth  in  God's  smile  on 
those  who  heed  his  claims,  in  his  blight  and  curse 
on  those  who  disregard  them. 


ANTIDOTE  OF  COVETOUSNE  SS.  49 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  ANTIDOTE  OF  COVETOUSNESS. 

CovETorsNESS  is  deadly  in  its  influence.  "  Covet- 
ousness  is  idolatry."  It  is  inconsistent  with  piety. 
It  is  unmitigated  rebellion  against  God.  It  is  the 
object  of  God's  abhorrence  and  curse.  It  is  classed 
by  inspiration  with  fornication,  drunkenness,  theft, 
and  extortion.  It  is  "  a  temptation  and  a  snare." 
It  is  unsurpassed  in  its  power  to  harden  the  heart 
and  make  it  impervious  to  divine  truth,  to  deaden 
all  the  religious  sensibilities,  and  to  resist  the  Spirit 
of  God. 

Covetousness  is  prevalent.  The  miser  is  one  of 
the  most  universally  abhorred  of  men.  But  plume 
not  yourself  that  you  are  not  covetous,  because  you 
are  not  a  miser.  Misers  are  the  rarest  specimens  of 
this  sin.  Under  other  forms,  it  rankles  everywhere. 
You  are  warned  against  a  covetousness  of  a  more 
respectable  appearance.  It  may  exist  unsuspected. 
There  may  be  covetousness  in  saving — parsimony 
under  the  ''alias''  of  frugality,  avarice,  which  never 
parts  with  money  without  a  twinge.  Oftener  there 
is  covetousness  in  getting — sometimes  rapacity  which 
scruples  at  no  means  if  money  may  be  gained  ;  but 
much  more  generally  the  more  respectable  form  of 
worldhness,  keeping  within  the  limits  of  honesty  but 
swallowing  all  the  energies  in  money-getting,  deaden- 

Scrip.  B«neT, 


50  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

ing  the  benevolent  susceptibilities,  pinching  and  shriv- 
elling the  soul,  living  only  to  "  buy  and  sell  and  get 
gain."  Covetousness  may  be  found  even  in  connec- 
tion with  prodigality :  greediness  to  acquire,  to  supply 
the  extravagance  of  expense.  It  enslaves  multitudes 
who  are  neither  misers  in  hoarding,  nor  rapacious 
nor  extortionate  in  getting.  In  its  diversified  forms 
it  is  one  of  the  most  prevalent  of  the  vices,  and  often, 
under  its  various  disguises,  honored  rather  than  con- 
demned ;  as  it  is  written,  "  The  wicked  blesseth  the 
covetous,  whom  the  Lord  abhorreth." 

And  there  is  a  liability  to  become  covetous  and  to 
groiv  in  covetousness,  to  the  existence  and  dangers 
of  which  the  most  of  men  seem  not  to  be  awake. 
In  the  prosecution  of  business,  the  love  of  money  is 
frei^zing  deeper  and  harder  into  their  souls,  and  seal- 
ing up  the  springs  of  benevolence,  and  they  know  it 
not.  One  remarkable  feature  in  the  Saviour's  teach- 
ing, is  the  frequency  and  earnestness  with  which  he 
rebuked  this  sin,  and  pointed  out  the  dangers  of 
wordly  acquisitions.  He  exposed  it  in  the  mansions 
of  wealth  and  the  circles  of  devotion,  in  the  temple 
and  in  the  street,  in  amiable  inquirers  after  salvation, 
in  Pharisaical  professors  and  vicious  publicans.  His 
warning  was,  ''Take  heed  and  beivare  of  covetous- 
ness. Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon."  The 
frequency  and  earnestness  of  his  warnings  contrast 
strangely  with  the  eagerness  and  security  with  which 
his  professed  followers  make  haste  to  be  rich,  and 


ANTIDOTE  OF  COVE  TOUSNE  SS.       51 

Bhov/  that  he  saw  a  danger  imminent  and  prevalent 
to  which  they  are  strangely  blind.  We  do  not  vary 
from  the  spirit  of  his  teachings  in  saying,  that  covet- 
ousness  is  the  most  common,  the  most  insidious,  and 
the  most  dangerous  form  of  selfishness,  the  one  which 
the  most  deadens  the  church,  and  is  the  most  likely 
to  crush  it. 

A  little  consideration  will  show  the  reality  of  this 
danger.  "  Money  answereth  all  things."  It  is  the 
representative  of  all  commodities  and  the  means  of 
procuring  them.  It  is  natural  that  selfishness  should 
fasten  with  peculiar  strength  on  an  acquisition  which 
is  the  quintessence  of  all  objects  of  desire.  Besides, 
men  are  necessarily  occupied  during  the  most  of  their 
waking  hours  in  earning  money.  To  this  end  the 
thoughts  must  plan  and  the  hands  must  toil.  It  is 
natural  that  what  so  occupies  the  man  should  grad- 
ually grow  upon  his  mind ;  as  a  picture  long  gazed 
at  intently,  gradually  fills  the  eye  and  enlarges  to  the 
dimensions  of  a  real  landscape.  Especially  must 
this  result  be  expected,  when  the  object  which  thus 
occupies  the  attention  is  one  so  pleasing  to  the  selfi&h 
heart. 

Besides,  it  is  the  nature  of  covetousness  to  grow  by 
what  it  feeds  on.  Acquisitions  increase  its  strength, 
In  accordance  with  this  well-known  fact,  the  ten- 
dency of  gainful  business  is  to  make  the  man  more 
covetous. 

These  tendencies  would  be  exceedingly  strong,  and  • 


52  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

would  need  to  be  most  diligently  guarded  against, 
under  circumstances  the  most  favorable  to  benevo- 
lence. But  they  are  strengthened  by  outward  cir- 
cumstances. 

There  is  a  perverted  public  sentiment,  a  prevalent 
overvaluing  of  wealth,  which  silently  sinks  into  the 
inmost  soul — the  scarcely  acknowledged,  yet  control- 
Hng  feeling,  that  wealth  is  the  great  good  of  human 
existence,  which  has  incorporated  itself  into  our  very 
language;  so  that  "to  do  well,"  "to  be  success- 
ful," "to  accomplish  much  in  life,"  are  phrases  sy- 
nonymous with  making  much  money  ;  "  gain  "  is 
equivalent  in  our  language  to  "  filthy  lucre  "  in  God's, 
and  "  goods  "  on  our  lips,  is  "  the  unrighteous  mam- 
mon" on  Christ's;  and  a  late  writer  has  suggested 
the  idea,  that  we  speak  of  a  man  as  being  ''worth 
much,"  or  "  worth  nothing,"  as  if  all  worth  centred 
in  money. 

Worldliness,  too,  is  the  general  character  of  the 
community,  and  a  man  finds  few  examples  of  scrip- 
tural benevolence,  to  show  him  his  own  selfishness 
by  contrast,  and  to  stimulate  him  to  beneficence. 

It  is  also  an  important  circumstance,  that  the  man 
has  been  trained  from  childhood  under  worldly  influ- 
ences ;  he  has  seen,  perhaps,  that  whatever  their  pro- 
fessions, the  chief  actual  anxiety  of  his  parents  con- 
cerning him  has  been  to  have  him  making  money, 
and  that  to  get  him  "a  good  situation,"  and  a  "situ- 
ation where  he  can  make  money,"  and  to  "give  him 


ANTIDOTE   OF   CO  VE  TOUSNE  S3.  53 

a  good  start,"  and  to  "  start  him  well  in  the  career 
of  acquiring  property,"  mean  in  their  minds  about 
the  same  thing ;  and  that  in  all  his  training  for  busi- 
ness, he  is  taught  that  "the  main  chance"  is  to 
make  monej^  and  in  eflect,  that  a  man's  life  doe& 
consist  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  that  he  pos- 
sesseth.  From  childhood  he  has  been  indoctrinated 
by  precept  and  example  with  the  maxims  of  worldly 
policy,  rather  than  the  principles  of  benevolence — 
with  the  proverbs  of  "  Poor  E-ichard "  respecting 
property,  rather  than  the  precepts  of  Jesus  Christ. 

All  these  circumstances  tend  to  make  wealth  the 
central  idea  of  the  mind,  to  beget  a  materializing, 
deadening  worldliness,  to  blight  benevolence,  and  to 
make  men  as  laborious  and  untiring  in  their  business, 
and  at  the  same  time  as  callous  to  the  interests  of 
others,  as  so  many  iron  steam-engines  at  their  work. 
The  pious  and  benevolent,  who  mingle  constantly  in 
business,  know  that  the  danger  is  imminent ;  they 
know  that  the  maintenance  of  benevolence  is  opposed 
by  silent  but  powerful  influences,  with  which  contact 
with  the  world  every  day  surrounds  them  ;  and  they 
tremble  at  their  own  liability  to  fall  under  the  insid- 
ious but  fatal  power  of  covetousness.  It  is  alarm- 
ingly easy  for  gold  and  silver  to  "  canker,"  and  the 
love  of  it  to  become  an  eating  cancer  on  the  soul. 
Hence,  the  multitudes  whose  benevolence  never  grows 
with  their  riches ;  who,  when  rich,  give  nothing  like 
the  proportion  which  they  gave  when  poor ;  nay, 


54  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

who  give  no  more — who  give  less  than  they  gave 
then.  Hence  is  explained  the  admitted  fact,  that  the 
greater  part  of  the  funds  of  benevolent  associations 
comes  from  those  of  moderate  means.  Hence  arises 
the  general  necessity  of  agents  for  collecting  funds, 
and  of  the  most  pungent  appeals  for  contributions. 
Have  you  ever  considered  seriously  your  own  danger, 
and  taken  measures  to  guard  against  it  ?  If  not,  your 
very  thoughtlessness  is  presumptive  evidence  that  you 
are  already  consuming  with  the  love  of  money. 

We  see,  then,  that  the  path  of  worldly  business  is 
fraught  with  constant  danger  of  a  deadly  evil.  He 
who  sets  out  on  that  path  must  climb  a  snow-capped 
mountain,  where  every  step  is  along  icy  precipices, 
where  the  air  chills  to  the  heart  the  spiritual  life, 
where  every  touch  is  upon  nipping  frost,  and  where 
the  cold  is  perpetually  producing  a  sleepiness  almost 
resistless,  but  which,  if  indulged,  will  be  the  sleep  of 
death.  It  is,  then,  a  question  of  spiritual  life  or 
death,  "  How  shall  I  do  my  necessary  business,  and 
escape  covetousness — benumbing,  paralyzing,  deadly 
covetousness?"  Alas,  that  Christians  so  seldom  ask 
this  question — so  little  take  the  tremendous  meaning 
of  Christ's  assertion,  "  Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mam- 
mon " — so  little  realize  the  danger  which  gives  the 
thrilling  emphasis  to  his  warning,  '*  Take  iieed  and 
BEWARE  of  covetousness." 

He  who  knows  what  is  in  man,  has  provided  a 
safegimrd  against  this  danger.     He  has,  indeed,  so 


ANTIDOTE   OF   C  OVE  TOUSNE  SS.  55 

contrived  the  plan  of  salvation,  that  all  the  motives 
of  the  gospel,  radiating  as  they  do  from  the  cross  of  the 
Son  of  God  offering  the  stupendous  sacrifice  of  himself, 
may  bear  directly  against  selfishness  and  tend  to  unfold 
self-sacrificing  benevolence.  But  this  is  not  all.  He 
has  enjoined  systematic  benevolence.  This  is  God's 
remedy  for  covetousness.  Infinite  wisdom  vrould  not 
trust  to  unsystematized  contributions,  knowing  that 
irregular  efforts,  sustained  by  no  habit,  no  fixed  time, 
no  predetermined  plan,  giving  way  to  every  casual 
expenditure,  would  be  but  a  slender  barrier  against 
a  tendency  so  constant  and  powerful.  God  requires 
systematic  and  proportionate  benevolence. 

This  plan  is  most  beautifully  fitted  to  this  design. 
It  accords  with  the  laws  of  the  human  mind.  There 
is  no  way  of  subduing  one  of  our  active  propensities, 
but  by  refusing  it  indulgence,  and  so  starving  it  to 
death.  This  the  scheme  of  benevolence  does  to  the 
sinful  love  of  money.  As  fast  as  treasures  are  gained, 
it  tears  them  from  the  gloating  eye  of  covetousness 
to  consecrate  them  to  the  Lord.  It  compels  the  man 
to  give  something  from  the  wages  of  every  day,  from 
the  profits  of  every  enterprise  and  investment.  Thus, 
drop  by  drop,  it  drains  the  lifeblood  of  that  giant  pas- 
sion. And  as  the  gains  enlarge,  God  follows  with 
his  enlarging  claims  :  should  money  come  into  the 
hands  by  thousands  a  year,  there  would  be  none  left 
as  food  for  covetousness,  and  the  man  would  be  ne- 
cessitated to  obey  the  command,  "  If  riches  increase, 


56  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

set  not  your  heart  upon  them."  And  there  is  no 
way  of  strengthening  our  active  propensities  hut  by 
exercising  them.  Therefore  God's  rule  requires  ap- 
propriations to  charity  every  week,  that  benevolence 
may  be  strengthening  itself  by  frequent  exercise,  and 
the  disposition  to  give  be  consolidated  by  habit ;  it 
requires  appropriations  from  all  the  earnings,  that 
benevolence  may  preside  in  every  department,  and 
the  heart,  kept  always  open,  may  have  no  opportu- 
nity to  contract ;  and  it  requires  appropriations  pro- 
portionate to  the  means,  that  whereas  covetousness 
naturally  grows  by  increasing  acquisitions,  this  ad- 
vantage may  be  wrested  from  it  and  given  to  benev- 
olence. Thus  the  practice  of  this  scheme  becomes, 
with  God's  grace,  like  a  fire-proof  coat,  in  which  the 
wearer  may  walk  collectedly  in  the  fiercest  furnace 
of  worldliness,  and  "  not  the  smell  of  fire  pass  on 
him."  It  is  impossible,  according  to  the  laws  of  the 
mind,  to  practise  on  this  plan  without  continually 
weakening  covetousness  and  strengthening  benevo- 
lence ;  nay,  the  wonted  influence  of  worldly  pursuits 
is  reversed :  by  pouring  treasures  into  the  lap  avarice 
is  starved,  while  even  by  the  toils  of  money-getting 
benevolence  is  exercised  and  strengthened.  Thus, 
by  the  very  processes  of  business  the  power  of  benev- 
olence goes  on  enlarging,  till  she  stands  up  in  her 
godlike  majesty,  the  queen  of  the  soul,  and  crushes 
beneath  her  heel  the  tyrant  that  had  enslaved  it. 
We  must  not  leave  this  part  of  the  subject  with- 


ANTIDOTE   OF   COVETOUSNESS.  57 

out  considering  its  bearing  on  the  community,  as  we 
have  already  considered  its  bearing  on  the  individual. 
Since  the  revival  of  commerce,  the  vi^arlike  spirit  of 
chivalry,  the  love  of  martial  glory  and  of  conquest 
have  been  gradually  giving  place  to  the  spirit  of 
trade;  this  spirit  has  been  gradually  extending,  till 
it  has  become,  more  than  any  other,  the  controlling 
influence  in  the  world.  This  change  constitutes  an 
era  in  history,  the  causes,  development,  and  effects 
of  which  are  worthy  of  the  most  serious  study. 
-While  it  has  produced  many  happy  effects,  as  in  mit- 
igating the  spirit  of  war,  it  is  yet  a  problem  what 
results  it  will  finally  work  out — a  problem  which, 
alarming  as  already  is  the  tendency  of  the  public 
mind  to  covetousness,  is  one  of  the  most  momen- 
tous subjects  now  demanding  the  attention  of  phi- 
lanthropists. There  is  an  absorption  of  all  interests 
and  energies  in  money-getting,  such  as  was  never 
witnessed  in  the  world  before.  Under  this  stimulus 
the  country  is  filling  with  power-looms,  steam-en- 
gines, and  telegraphs,  and  energies  and  resources  are 
employed  in  the  prosecution  of  peaceful  business, 
which  would  once  have  been  more  than  enough  to 
build  the  pyramids  or  to  conquer  the  world.  We 
acknowledge  all  the  blessings  of  these  inventions. 
But  while  every  orator  and  every  newspaper  is 
dwelling  on  our  commerce  whitening  every  sea,  oui 
enterprise  penetrating  every  country,  on  the  mir- 
acle-working of  the  iron  horse  and  the  lightning 
10 


58  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

messenger,  on  our  boundless  territory  and  exhaustless 
resources ;  and  while  a  manufacturing  city  is  laid 
out  in  an  uninhabited  spot,  and  built  up  in  a  year  or 
two,  as  the  early  settlers  would  have  built  a  frame 
house — we  cannot  blind  ourselves  to  the  alarming 
tendency  in  the  public  mind  to  regard  these  things 
as  the  sum  total  of  all  prosperity  and  the  essentials 
of  all  blessedness  ;  nor  to  the  fact  that  the  energies 
which  are  so  effective  in  aiding  the  acquisition  of 
wealth,  are  scarcely  less  effective  in  stimulating  the 
love  of  it.  We  cannot  blind  ourselves  to  the  danger 
that  the  love  of  money  will  become  more  and  more 
the  ruling  influence,  absorbing  into  itself  even  that 
powerful  passion,  ambition ;  swallowing  up  the  love 
of  office  in  the  love  of  the  salary ;  overshadowing  the 
enterprises  of  religion  by  the  gigantic  and  spirit-stir- 
ring achievements  of  business  ;  drawing  the  church 
into  the  current  of  the  world,  and  making  its  mem- 
bers^undistinguishable  in  their  pursuit  of  money  from 
worldlings  ;  nullifying  the  influence  of  the  means  of 
grace,  choking  the  word  and  making  it  unfruitful, 
and  finally  overwhelming  in  worldliness  the  piety  of 
the  church — the  danger  that  the  spirit  of  trade,  not 
checked  as  it  should  be,  by  a  contrary  example  from 
the  good,  will  engulf  the  nation  in  a  Dead  sea  of 
cupidity  and  luxury,  or  degenerate  into  that  merce- 
nary spirit  which,  reckless  of  honor  and  virtue,  un- 
scrupulous, untrusty,  rapacious,  despicable,  has  no 
principle  but  the  Judas  question,  "  What  will  ye  give 


ANTIDOTE   OF   COVE  TOUSNE  SS.  59 

me  ?"  no  measure  of  good  and  evil  but  the  profit 
and  loss  of  dolkrs  and  cents. 

Systematic  benevolence  is  God's  appointed  safe- 
guard against  this  danger.  Practised  generally  and 
from  the  heart,  it  will  introduce  a  loftier  end  of  exist- 
ence than  the  acquisition  of  property  ;  will  ennoble 
the  pursuit  of  business  by  the  spirit  of  love  ;  will 
hold  up  a  spiritual  and  sublime  principle  in  antago- 
nism to  the  materializing  tendencies  of  the  spirit  of 
trade ;  will  make  civilization  centre  no  longer  on. 
wealth,  but  on  "  charity  that  seeketh  not  her  own," 
and  thus  will  form  it  into  a  civilization  pure,  gener- 
ous, heavenly,  expressing  in  every  aspect  the  godhke 
purpose  of  doing  good ;  a  civilization  uncursed  by 
want,  ignorance,  and  crime,  unblighted  by  oppres- 
sion, unclouded  by  irreligion,  because  wherever  were 
misery  and  degradation,  millions  of  hearts  will  throb 
in  pity,  millions  of  hands  be  extended  and  purses  be 
opened  to  relieve ;  a  civilization  which  we  see  only  in 
bright  glimpses  revealed  in  the  prophecies  of  Grod. 

From  all  these  views  of  the  relations  of  the  sub- 
ject to  covetousness,  it  is  plain  that,  to  the  church, 
systematic  benevolence  is  a  first  duty  of  self-preser- 
vation. She  has  no  walls  and  battlements  but  her 
own  active  benevolence,  no  army  with  banners  but 
her  sons  and  her  daughters  toiling  to  do  good.  If  the 
church  do  not  bless  the  world,  she  must  be  buried  in 
it.  If  the  piety  of  the  church,  as  it  makes  its  way 
through   this   wilderness,  do  not,  like  a  fertilizing 


CO        SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

stream,  make  all  its  banks  "  rejoice  and  blossom  as 
the  rose,"  it  must  be  swallowed  up  in  it  like  a  river 
lost  in  the  desert  sands  which  it  fails  to  make  fruit- 
ful. But  let  the  scriptural  law  of  charitable  appro- 
priations be  adopted,  and  thus  let  benevolence  keep 
pace  with  advancing  business,  following  it  into  every 
new  path,  and  laying  her  gentle  hand  on  all  its  un- 
folding resources,  then  will  covetousness  wither  amid 
increasing  enterprise,  and  benevolence  will  unfold 
with  an  energy  rivalling  the  energies  of  business,  and 
making  them  her  ministers.  Then  the  enterprises  of 
religion,  no  longer  cast  into  the  shade  by  the  achieve- 
ments of  worldliness,  will  encircle  the  earth  with  a 
vastness  and  a  vigor  more  amazing  than  the  triumphs 
of  commerce  and  manufactures,  and  the  miracles  of 
modern  art. 

We  must  gratefully  notice  the  remarkable  coinci- 
dence of  God's  providence  in  calling  his  children  to 
great  enterprises,  and  in  opening  the  world  for  un- 
limited effort,  at  the  very  time  when,  from  the 
unprecedented  pressure  of  worldliness,  there  is  un- 
precedented need  of  such  counteraction  to  covetous- 
ness. Let  Christians  understand  that  it  is  God's 
mercy  which  multiplies  the  calls  to  give,  to  save 
them  from  the  multiplied  assaults  of  covetousness. 
Let  them  know  that  they  neglect  these  calls  at 
their  peril — the  peril  of  perishing  in  covetousness, 
of  drowning  in  the  "destruction  and  perdition"  of 
them  "  that  will  be  rich." 


SPIRITUAL  ATTAINMENTS.  Ql 


CHAPTER  VII. 

SYSTEMATIC    BENEVOLENCE    ESSENTIAL  TO 
THE  HIGHEST   SPIRITUAL  ATTAINMENTS. 

Alms-giving  was  thought  so  important  in  the  an- 
cient church,  that  it  used  to  be  called  one  of  the  wings 
of  prayer ;  and  the  angel  seems  to  have  placed  them 
side  by  side  as  means  of  access  to  God's  favor,  when 
he  said  to  Cornelius,  "Thy  prayers  and  thine  ahns 
are  come  up  for  a  memorial  before  God."  So  Christ 
said,  "If  ye  have  not  been  faithful  in  the  unrighteous 
mammon,  who  will  commit  to  your  trust  the  true 
riches?"  plainly  declaring  the  intimate  connection, 
now  so  little  appreciated,  between  high  spiritual  at- 
tainments and  the  right  use  of  property.  In  the 
duty  of  systematic  benevolence,  then,  may  be  found 
an  essential  requisite,  seldom  thought  of,  for  securing 
that  elevated  tone  of  piety,  the  want  of  which  is  so 
much  lamented. 

It  produces  a  more  vigorous  and  elevated  tone  of 
piety  by  givi7ig  to  love  that  exercise  ivhich  is  essen- 
tial to  its  health  and  groivth.  Love  is  the  essence 
of  piety ;  and  it  is  as  preposterous  to  expect  it  to 
thrive  without  the  habitual  exercise  of  beneficence, 
as  to  expect  the  body  to  be  healthy  in  perpetual  in- 
action. Piety  cannot  thrive  as  an  ineffectual  sen- 
sibility, exhausting  itself  on  its  own  emotions  in 
the  heart ;  but  from  the  spiritual  affections  of  the 


6S        SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

inmost  soul,  it  must  issue,  a  transforming  and  control- 
ling influence,  pervading  the  whole  life.  It  is  a  life- 
blood,  which  it  is  death  to  drive  back  on  the  heart ; 
which  as  the  only  condition  of  health,  must  flow 
through  the  whole  being,  and  throb  with  living 
power  in  the  remotest  and  minutest  acts.  This  con 
dition  of  spiritual  health  systematic  benevolence  is 
indispensable  to  secure  ;  and  thus  it  is  essential  to 
meet  one  of  the  greatest  wants  of  the  churches,  and 
to  remove  one  of  the  greatest,  though  not  one  of  the 
most  noticed  obstacles  to  higher  attainments  in  the 
spiritual  life. 

It  aids  growth  in  grace  hy  promoting  a  con?,tant 
intimacy  with  God.  It  requires  the  will  of  God  to 
be  considered  in  every  act  of  business,  and  links  every 
expenditure  with  a  regard  to  his  glory.  "The  hand 
of  God  is  recognized  in  our  worldly  affairs ;  his  pres- 
ence is  invited,  so  to  speak,  into  the  very  heart  of  our 
prosperity,  whence  the  world  is  most  anxious  to  ex- 
clude him,  invited  to  audit  the  account  of  our  gains." 
Thus  it  leads  to  "walk  with  God," 

It  awakens  a  deeper  earnestness  for  the  salvation 
of  tnen,  and  of  course,  a  greater  fervor  in  prayer. 
It  is  a  law  of  our  natures,  that  doing  kind  deeds  to 
others  strengthens  our  love  for  them  more  than  re- 
ceiving kind  deeds  from  them.  We  love  most  those 
for  whom  we  do  most.  Hence,  the  more  we  do  ibr 
the  welfare  of  men,  the  more  we  shall  feel  and  pray 
for  them.     Thus  systematic  charity  keeps  the  spirit 


SPIRITUAL  ATTAINMENTS.  63 

of  prayer  lively  and  the  religious  feelings  tender  and 
fresh.  He  who  practises  it  will  be  likely  to  become 
an  eminent  Christian,  entering  with  all  his  heart 
into  every  effort  to  do  good,  sympathizing  in  every 
feeling  with  the  soul  of  Christ,  and  electric  to  every 
touch  with  his  loving  and  self-sacrificing  spirit. 

It  concentrates,  the  energies,  and  thus  favors  spir- 
itual growth.  [t  prevents  the  division  of  purpose 
which  is  the  great  hinderance  of  success,  fills,  enlarg- 
es, and  nerves  the  soul  with  the  sublime  purpose  of 
doing  good,  and  bending  every  power  ta  that  one 
object,  enables  us  to  say  with  Paul's  earnestness, 
"  This  one  thing  we  do." 

But  its  most  important  influence  in  promoting  the 
spiritual  growth,  is  in  counteracting  the  deadening 
injlicences  of  worldly  business.  It  has  already  been 
considered  as  the  antidote  for  covetousness.  In  thus 
grappling  directly  with  this  mother  sin,  it  withers 
the  strength  of  some  of  the  most  powerful  tempta- 
tions, and  exerts  a  varied  and  extensive  influence  in 
unfolding  the  whole  Christian  character  in  its  beauty. 
It  extracts  the  poison  from  worldly  pursuits  ;  it  coun- 
teracts their  usual  perniciousness ;  and  not  only  so, 
it  compels  them  to  become  actually  helpers  to  growth 
in  piety,  as  the  exercise  and  discipline  of  heavenly 
aflection ;  so  that  Christians  may  be 

"Like  ships  in  seas,  while  in,  above  the  world," 
and  all  the  agitations  of  busy  life  be  but  the  bounding 
billows  which  bear  them  on  their  appointed  course. 


64  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

It  is  a  common  impression  that  the  highest  excr 
cise  of  rehgion  is  incompatible  with  the  highest  ac- 
tivity and  enterprise  in  worldly  business ;  that  as 
business  increases,  the  activity  of  piety  must  decline ; 
and  that  revivals  are  not  to  be  looked  for  in  those 
periods  when  business  is  peculiarly  urgent.  This  im- 
pression is  wholly  unscriptural.  The  Bible  requires 
us  at  the  same  time  to  be  "not  slothful  in  business, 
fervent  in  spirit,  serving  the  Lord" — a  requirement, 
plainly,  that  fervor  and  activity  in  God's  service  go 
hand  in  hand  with  fervor  and  activity  in  business. 
Nothing  is  plainer  than  that  the  whole  system  of  pre- 
cepts, promises,  and  warnings  in  the  Bible  is  adapted 
to  man  amid  the  annoyances,  temptations,  and  cares 
of  every-day  business.  Should  a  man  become  a  her- 
mit for  the  better  exercise  of  religion,  he  would  find 
a  large  part  of  the  Bible  wdth  no  applicability  to  his 
circumstances.  Besides,  such  a  withdrawal  is  im- 
possible, for  necessity  is  on  the  most  of  men  to  spend 
their  time  in  business.  God  requires  them  to  be  in- 
dustrious in  some  useful  calling.  To  suppose  Goa 
requires  a  piety  which  it  is  impossible  to  exercise  in 
its  higher  degrees  in  the  midst  of  that  business  which 
his  providence  makes  necessary  and  his  law  enjoins, 
is  to  charge  God  with  unreasonable  and  inconsistent 
requirements. 

But  such  an  impression  prevails.  Not  only  so,  but 
it  is  certain  that  business,  as  usually  conducted,  jus- 
tifies it ;  for  it  has  tendencies  almost  sure  to  check 


SPIRITUAL  ATTAINMENTS.  65 

the  growth  of  the  Christian,  so  that  the  good  feeling 
aroused  in  the  closet  or  on  the  Sabbath  is  benumbed 
as  by  the  shock  of  a  torpedo,  as  soon  as  he  takes  his 
worldly  affairs  in  hand ;  and  it  has  tendencies  to  pre- 
vent the  unconverted  from  attending  to  religion,  and 
to  harden  them  in  hopeless  inpenitence.  Business 
occupies  the  time  so  that  the  prayer-meeting  is  neg- 
lected, and  sometimes  the  family  altar,  the  closet, 
and  the  word  of  God  ;  so  that  the  fatigue  of  exces- 
sive toil  through  the  week  causes  slumber  in  the  sanc- 
tuary, or  is  made  an  excuse  for  absence.  Sometimes 
the  pressure  of  business,  or  the  fear  that  machinery 
will  lose  a  few  hours  in  the  week,  leads  to  flagrant, 
perhaps  habitual  profanation  of  God's  day.  Busi- 
ness occupies  the  thoughts,  so  that  all  the  week  long 
nothing  else  obtains  a  lodgment  in  the  mind,  and 
though  the  body  be  in  God's  house  on  the  Sabbath, 
the  thoughts  are  on  the  world ;  and  thus,  like  one 
perishing  in  the  water,  the  man  of  business  scarcely 
gets  his  head  above  the  worldliness  which  ingulfs 
him,  to  catch  a  breath  of  the  pure  air  of  heavenly 
life.  And  worse  than  all,  his  business  seizes  his 
heart ;  there  is  a  fascination  about  it  which  draws  to 
itself  all  his  affections  and  energies.  "  He  makes 
gold  his  hope,  and  says  to  the  most  fine  gold,  *  Thou 
art  my  confidence.'  "  In  short,  it  is  tending  perpet- 
ually to  make  him  at  last  a  worldling,  for  whom  the 
claims  of  benevolence  and  the  schemes  of  philan- 
thropy have  lost  their  charm,  who  has  no  eye  for  the 

Scrip.  Beu«v. 


66  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

glories  of  heaven,  no  ear  for  the  terrors  of  hell ; 
who  heeds  his  "piece  of  land,"  his  "merchandise," 
his  "  five  yoke  of  oxen,"  more  than  the  invitations 
of  mercy  and  the  attractions  of  the  cross ;  whose 
heart  is  in  his  purse,  and  his  life  circumscribed  to  his 
farm,  his  counting-room,  or  his  shop ;  who  as  to  spir- 
itual life  is  dead  and  buried  in  worldliness,  and  his 
prosperity  is  but  the  magnificent  monument  of  his 
soul's  burial-place,  on  which  all  who  weep  his  un- 
timely ruin,  may  read  with  shuddering  the  inscrip- 
tion which  God's  finger  has  engraved :  "  Lo,  this  is 
the  man  that  made  not  God  his  strength,  but  trusted 
in  the  abundance  of  his  riches."  "  So  is  he  that  lay- 
eth  up  treasure  for  himself,  and  is  not  rich  toward 
Godr 

Systematic  benevolence  restrains  this  pernicious 
influence  of  business.  But  mere  restraint  is  not  all. 
It  is  not  enough  to  ask  how  business  is  to  be  kept  from 
injuring  the  church.  Doing  business  is  not  necessa- 
rily serving  mammon,  therefore  not  necessarily  the 
antagonist  of  serving  God.  It  is  dangerous  for  Chris- 
tians to  stand  merely  on  the  defensive  here,  and 
think  merely  to  shield  religion  from  the  onslaught  of 
worldliness.  We  must  go  further.  The  question 
must  be,  "  How  shall  we  bring  business  within  the 
pale  of  religion,  make  it  a  part  of  religion,  and  an 
aid  to  its  growth  ?  How  make  it  help  in  exercising 
and  strengthening  piety,  as  really  as  does  prayer?" 
The  Bible  requires  business  to  be  thus  identified  with 


SPIRITUAL  ATTAINMENTS.  67 

God's  service,  and  never  will  the  church  be  saved 
from  wasting  worldliness  and  grow  to  her  full  stature 
in  piety,  till  she  carries  the  war  into  the  enemy's  ter- 
ritory, "  overcomes  the  world,"  and  makes  it  tribu- 
tary to  herself;  and  that,  not  merely  by  securing  the 
silver  and  gold  for  her  enterprises,  but  by  securing 
in  the  very  acts  of  worldly  business  a  discipline  of 
piety  and  an  exercising  and  strengthening  of  grace. 
Business  must  occupy  almost  all  the  time  of  the 
most  of  God's  children  :  how  preposterous  to  expect 
them  to  make  great  attainments  in  piety  if  this  busi- 
ness, like  a  poisoned  atmosphere,  is  perpetually  en- 
feebling their  strength ;  if  their  religion  is  confined 
for  its  sources  of  nourishment  to  the  Sabbath  and  the 
closet,  and  during  almost  their  entire  waking  exist- 
ence, is  helplessly  exposed  to  an  ever-blighting  agency 
from  their  own  pursuits.  They  must  bind  their 
business  on  God's  altar,  or  it  will  bind  them  on  the 
altar  of  mammon. 

The  practical  separation  of  business  from  religion, 
the  belief  that  the  former  is  necessarily  antagonisti- 
cal  to  the  latter,  and  conducting  it  so  as  to  make  it 
so,  are  among  the  principal  causes  why  the  tone  of 
piety  is  so  low,  and  the  mass  of  the  church  are  but 
babes  in  Christ.  Nor  till  this  difficulty  is  removed 
have  we  a  right  to  expect  the  church  to  "  look  forth 
as  the  morning,  fair  as  the  moon,  clear  as  the  sun, 
and  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners." 

Systematic  benevolence  is  a  most  important  and 


68  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

an  indispensable  agency  in  making  business  a  helper 
and  not  a  foe  to  the  rehgious  growth.  When  a  man 
acts  on  this  principle,  his  place  of  business  becomes 
a  Bethel ;  every  transaction  becomes  like  a  renewal 
of  his  consecration  to  God  ;  money  and  bills  and  la- 
bor are  associated  with  his  obligations  to  his  Master, 
and  fragrant  with  the  memory  of  the  cross  ;  and  like 
the  attraction  drawing  every  part  of  the  earth  and 
binding  it  to  the  sun,  divine  love  fastens  its  attrac- 
tion on  every  possession,  on  eveiy  toil,  and  every 
gain,  and  binds  him  with  all  that  he  has  to  God 
the  centre  of  his  whole  life's  orbit.  Then  he  is 
intimate  with  God  not  less  on  the  exchange  or  the 
farm,  than  in  the  closet.  Then  his  whole  course  of 
life  becomes  a  help  and  not  a  hinderance  to  his  spirit- 
ual progress ;  and  like  a  healthy  child,  he  grows 
steadily  and  unconsciously  amid  the  ceaseless  activ- 
ity of  life. 

IToimand  Smith,  when  roused  to  a  more  entire  con- 
secration to  God,  falling  in  with  the  common  notion 
that  a  life  of  secular  business  is  incompatible  with  a 
life  of  eminent  usefulness  and  piety,  seriously  pur- 
posed to  abandon  it.  But  more  scriptural  views  led 
him  to  continue  in  business,  consecrating  it  to  God. 
He  put  on  record  the  "  purpose  to  engage  in  my  busi- 
ness, that  I  may  serve  God  in  it,  and  with  the  expec- 
tation of  getting  to  give."  His  biographer  says, 
"  From  that  time  it  was  observable  by  all  who  knew 
him,  that  he  made  rapid  progress  in  religion.     There 


SPIRITUAL  ATTAINMENTS.  69 

was  a  fervor  and  engagedness  of  spirit,  a  purity  and 
elevation  of  aim,  that  could  not  be  misunderstood  or 
concealed.  He  rose  towards  heaven  like  the  lark  of 
the  morning."  From  that  time  "he  found  no  ten- 
dency in  his  worldly  engagements  to  chill  his  piety, 
or  to  enchain  his  affections  to  the  earth.  His  busi- 
ness became  to  him  a  means  of  grace,  and  helped 
him  forward  in  the  divine  life,  just  as  truly  as  read- 
ing the  Scriptures  and  prayer." 

When  a  similar  habit  shall  become  general  in  the 
church,  one  of  the  most  important  steps  will  have 
been  taken  to  secure  that  elevation  of  piety  for 
which  as  yet  we  sigh  in  vain ;  and  the  law  of  love, 
now  written  in  Christ's  word,  will  be  written  on  the 
hearts  of  his  disciples  and  read  by  all  the  world  in 
their  lives. 

Says  President  Edwards  of  alms-giving,  "  There  is 
no  external  duty,  by  which  persons  will  be  so  much 
in  the  way,  not  only  of  receiving  temporal  benefits, 
but  also  spiritual  blessings,  the  influences  of  God's 
Spirit  in  the  heart  in  divine  discoveries  and  spiritual 
consolations."  "  That  this  is  one  likely  means  to 
obtain  assurance,  is  evident  from  1  John,  3  :  18,  19, 
*  My  little  children,  let  us  not  love  in  word,  neither 
in  tongue,  but  in  deed  and  in  truth.  And  hereby 
we  know  that  we  are  of  the  truth,  and  shall  assure 
our  hearts  before  him.'  "  "  If  God's  people  in  this 
land  were  once  brought  to  abound  in  such  deeds  oi 
love,  nothing  would  have  a  greater  tendency  to  bring 


70        SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

the  God  of  love  down  from  heaven  to  earth ;  so  ami- 
able would  be  the  sight  in  the  eyes  of  our  loving  and 
exalted  Redeemer,  that  it  would  soon  as  it  were  fetch 
him  down  from  his  throne  in  heaven,  to  set  up -his  tab- 
ernacle with  men  on  the  earth  and  dwell  with  them." 
"  The  late  remarkable  revival  of  religion  in  Saxony, 
which  began  by  the  labors  of  the  famous  professor 
Franke,  and  has  now  been  carried  on  for  above  thirty 
years,  and  has  spread  its  happy  influences  into  many 
parts  of  the  world,  was  begun  and  has  been  carried 
on  by  a  wonderful  practice  in  this  duty."  Thoughts 
on  the  Revival,  part  5,  sect.  3. 


BLESSING  THE   CHURCH.  71 


CHAPTER   YIII. 

SYSTEMATIC  BENEVOLENCE  INCREASES  THE 
SPIRITUAL  POWER  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

The  increase  of  spiritual  power  will  be  the  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  increase  of  piety.  And  by 
promoting  an  increase  of  piety,  systematic  benevo- 
lence imparts  an  efficacy  to  the  prayers  and  teach- 
ings of  the  church,  an  influence  to  her  character,  a 
success  to  her  enterprises,  a  mightiness  through- God 
to  the  pulling  down  of  strong  holds,  such  as  money 
cannot  bestow. 

Here,  also,  we  may  consider  principally  its  influ- 
ence in  counteracting  worldliness.  No  argument  is 
oftener  urged  against  religion  than  that  founded  on 
the  alleged  inconsistencies  of  its  professors.  The 
chief  foundation  for  this  plea,  so  far  as  it  has  any,  is 
the  conformity  of  Christians  to  the  world  in  all  the 
aims,  the  maxims,  and  the  manner  of  getting  and 
spending  money,  so  that  too  commonly.  Christians, 
away  from  their  devotions,  can  scarcely  be  distin- 
guished from  the  better  sort  of  worldlings.  Let  the 
scriptural  law  of  benevolence  be  usually  obeyed ;  let 
the  world  behold  Christians  actuated  by  the  sublime 
desire  to  do  good  in  all  their  gettings  and  their  expen- 
ditures, and  consecrating  spontaneously  to  the  Lord 
as  he  hath  prospered  them ;  let  it  be  seen,  when  men 
become  Christians,  by  the  change  in  their  pursuit  of 


72  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

earthly  treasure,  that  they  have  found  a  better  poi- 
tion,  and  now  have  their  hearts  and  then*  treasure  in 
heaven  ;  and  the  church  will  stand  up  before  the 
world  with  a  consistency  and  elevation  of  piety  which 
will  prove  that  gainsaying  springs  only  from  opposi- 
tion to  goodness — with  a  triumphant  power  which 
will  compel  the  exclamation,  "  God  is  in  the  midst 
of  her;  she  shall  not  be  moved" — with  a  manifest 
and  practical  renunciation  of  the  world,  like  that 
which  in  the  apostles'  days  compelled  both  Jews  and 
Gentiles  to  confess  the  reality  and  feel  the  power  of 
religion,  and  which,  reappearing  in  the  church,  will 
go  far  towards  restoring  the  like  rapidity  and  glory 
to  her  conquests. 

It  would  be  ungrateful,  indeed,  not  to  acknow- 
ledge, among  the  striking  characteristics  of  this  age, 
the  revival,  in  a  degree,  of  the  benevolent  and  mis- 
sionary spirit  of  apostolic  times.  We  hail  it  as  an 
omen  of  good  ;  we  have  marked  already  its  happy 
results  ;  we  wait  as  "  they  that  watch  for  the  morn- 
ing," for  "  the  glory  that  should  follow."  But  alas, 
how  much  in  vain  I  For  the  icebergs  and  snow- 
fields  of  the  long  winter  still  linger,  and  the  piercing 
winds  from  them  wither  the  plants  of  righteousness 
and  keep  back  the  buds  of  promise,  and  when  we 
might  be  looking  for  the  luxuriance  of  summer,  be- 
hold the  lingering,  frost-bitten  growth  of  a  backward 
and  chilling  spring. 

"Bring  ye  all  the  tithes  into  the  storehouse,  and 


BLESSING  THE   CHURCH  73 

prove  me  now  herewith,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  if  I 
will  not  open  you  the  windows  of  heaven,  and  pour 
you  out  a  blessing,  that  there  shall  not  be  room 
enough  to  receive  it."  We  so  constantly  spiritual- 
ize this  text,  as  to  forget  that  its  literal  and  proper 
application  is  to  contributions  to  the  Lord's  treas- 
u?'y.  Paying  these  fully  is  declared  here  to  be  the 
condition  of  God's  great  blessing.  Let  this  chal- 
lenge of  the  Most  High  be  accepted.  Let  his  sin- 
cerity in  it  be — as  for  generations  past,  by  the  church 
generally,  it  has  not  been — put  to  the  test.  Let  his 
disciples  "prove"  him,  by  giving  all  that  he  requires, 
and  see  if,  through  its  direct  and  indirect  influence, 
it  will  not  elevate  the  piety  and  enlarge  the  power 
and  successes  of  the  church — if  spiritual  stupidity 
will  continue  to  be,  for  the  larger  portion  of  the  time, 
the  lamentation  of  the  churches  at  home,  and  slow 
and  limited  success  the  history  of  benevolent  opera- 
tions abroad. 


11 


74  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE, 


CHAPTER  IX. 

SYSTEMATIC    BENEVOLENCE    PROMOTES 
HAPPINESS. 

It  is  a  privilege  to  give,  and  a  reason  for  thankful- 
ness to  have  the  opportunity  and  the  means.  Money- 
given  to  the  Lord  leaves  a  sweetness  like  the  per- 
fume of  the  alabaster-box  of  precious  ointment,  fill- 
ing the  soul  long  after  the  offering  has  been  poured 
out.  Those  who  have  given  most  regularly  and  in 
the  largest  proportion,  remember  with  the  most  joy- 
ous gratitude  what  God  has  enabled  them  to  do. 
When  David  and  his  people  had  contributed  im- 
mense treasures  "willingly"  to  build  the  temple,  we 
read  that  "  the  people  rejoiced,  and  David  the  king 
also  rejoiced  with  great  joy.  And  David  said,  Our 
God,  we  thank  thee,  and  praise  thy  glorious  name. 
But  what  am  I,  and  what  is  my  people,  that  we 
should  be  able  to  offer  so  willingly  after  this  sort  ? 
for  all  things  come  of  thee,  and  of  thine  own  have 
we  given  thee."  The  first  Christian  converts,  after 
"parting  their  goods  to  all  men,"  "did  eat  their  meat 
with  gladness."  Mr.  Cobb  said,  "  By  the  grace  of 
God — 7tothing  else — by  the  grace  of  God,  I  have  been 
enabled  to  give  more  than  $40,000.  How  good  the 
Lord  has  been  to  me!''  Said  a  man  in  moderate 
circumstances,  who  was  giving  his  whole  net  income, 
"  I  could  not  feel  happy  to  spend  the  money  on  my- 


PROMOTES  HAPPINESS.  75 

self,  while  so  much  is  to  be  done  for  the  needy  and  the 
perishing.  I  could  not  enjoy  myself  if  I  should  do 
it."  At  another  time,  when  necessary  extra  expen- 
ses greatly  diminished  his  charities  for  a  time,  he 
said,  "  I  find  it  one  of  my  greatest  trials,  that  I  can- 
not do  more  for  the  heathen." 

Systematic  benevolence  promotes  happiness  by  its 
influence  in  subduing  covetousness  and  strengthen- 
ing benevolence. 

As  we  have  already  seen  covetous-ness  to  be  a 
principal  hinderance  to  the  spiritual  groivth  and  the 
spiritual  power  of  the  church,  so  now  we  find  it  a 
hinderance  to  spiritual  enjoyment — nay,  to  human 
happiness  in  the  broadest  sense.  And  that  same 
divine  scheme  which  we  have  already  seen  to  be 
essential,  chiefly  by  its  influence  in  subduing  covet- 
ousness, to  the  growth  of  the  church's  piety  and  the 
advancement  of  its  triumphs,  we  now  see  to  be  es- 
sential, in  the  same  way,  to  happiness.  This  com- 
bined view  of  these  arguments  may  show  us  at  once 
the  far-reaching  and  appalling  dangers  of  covetous- 
ness, and  the  simplicity,  efficacy,  and  unfailing  adapt- 
edness  of  God's  scheme  of  prevention. 

The  covetous  or  selfish  scheme  of  doing  business 
is  alivays  tormenting.  It  is  accompanied  by  great 
anxiety.  He  who  does  business  on  this  system  is 
perpetually  anxious  and  chafed,  feverish  with  an  ex- 
citement and  perturbation,  which  are  avoided  by  him 
who  calmly  does  business  for  the  Lord,  and  asks  only 


76  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

what  the  Lord  w^ould  have  him  do.  "What  shall  I 
do  for  the  hundred  talents  which  I  have  given  to 
the  king  of  Israel  ?"  is  like  the  feverish  questioning  of 
the  former.  "The  Lord  is  able  to  give  thee  much 
more  than  this,"  is  like  the  trustful  reply  of  the  latter. 
Normand  Smith  incidentally  shows  what  a  preser- 
vative he  had  found  for  unruffled  calmness  amid  the 
annoyances  of  business,  by  the  following  entry  in  his 
diary :  "I  have  forgotten  and  broken  my  resolutions 
to  conduct  all  to  the  glory  of  God.  This  has  been 
manifested  in  my  being  fretted  at  what  I  deemed 
untimely  calls  for  settlement  and  for  debts."  He 
seems  to  imply  that  so  long  as  he  adhered  to  his 
"resolutions,"  fretting  at  the  annoyances  of  business 
was  not  a  thing  to  be  expected.  A  man  who  for 
years  has  been  doing  business  in  one  of  our  cities  on 
the  scriptural  plan  of  benevolence,  but  who  had  pre- 
viously done  business  otherwise,  says  of  himself,  that 
**  the  anxiety,  the  feverish  excitement,  and  the  im- 
patience to  get  the  news  and  the  results  of  sales,  or 
the  results  of  their  own  business  operations,  which 
merchants,  speculators,  and  others  are  continually 
burdened  with,  and  at  times  almost  to  distraction, 
and  from  which  there  seems  to  be  little  or  no  pros- 
pect of  relief,  all  such  perturbations  of  mind,  com- 
mon to  others,  were  once  common  to  his  experience ; 
but  he  ?^o^^;  seldom  feels  any  thing  of  the  kind ;  for 
he  has  learned  in  his  Bible  to  '  cast  his  burden  on 
the  Lord.' " 


PROMOTES  HAPPINESS.  77 

Besides,  upon  the  covetous  or  selfish  scheme  of 
business,  a  man  can  never  be  satisfied.  "  He  that 
loveth  silver  shall  not  be  satisfied  with  silver,  nor  he 
that  loveth  abundance  with  increase."  This  senti 
ment  has  been  in  the  mouths  of  the  wise  from  Solo- 
mon's day  till  now.  Its  truth  must  for  ever  cut  off 
the  covetous  man  from  solid  contentment.  The 
more  he  acquires,  the  more  he  wants ;  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  greatest  acquisitions,  he  remains  the 
very  realization  of  those  lean  and  ill-favored  kine 
which  devoured  all  that  was  fair  and  thriving  before 
them,  only  to  remain  as  lean,  as  ill-favored,  and  as 
voracious  as  ever.  There  has  appeared  in  the  news- 
papers a  horrible  story  about  a  man  who  had  an 
enormous  tape- worm  in  his  stomach :  however  much 
the  man  ate,  it  was  devoured  by  the  ugly  reptile 
within,  nourishing  itself  to  greater  bulk  and  voracity 
thereby,  while  the  wretched  man  was  wasting  in  the 
torment  of  perpetual  starvation.  "Whether  the  story 
be  true  or  false,  it  is  a  lively  picture  of  covetousness. 
That  is  a  worm  in  the  soul,  nourishing  itself  to 
greater  strength  and  voracity  by  every  acquisition, 
and  wasting  the  soul  in  the  agony  of  perpetual  want. 
Relief,  sought  in  vain  by  trying  to  satisfy,  can  come 
only  by  killing  the  devouring  desire — by  killing  it 
speedily,  before  it  proves  itself  "the  worm  that  never 
dies." 

It  is  related  in  the  history  of  ancient  Rome,  that 
an  immense  chasm  once  opened  in  the  midst  of  the 


78        SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

city.  The  superstitious  Romans,  to  appease  the  god 
whose  anger,  they  supposed,  had  opened  the  abyss, 
threw  in  the  costhest  garments  and  the  richest  treas- 
ures ;  but  in  vain.  At  last  one  of  the  most  distin- 
guished nobles  put  on  his  richest  armor,  and  mounting 
his  steed  leaped  into  the  abyss,  and  it  closed.  Covet- 
ousness,  in  its  insatiability,  realizes  this  fable.  It  is 
an  abyss  yawning  in  the  covetous  man's  path.  He 
gathers  treasures  and  casts  into  it,  but  it  closes  not. 
He  toils  harder,  he  gathers  more  and  richer  treasures 
and  casts  into  it,  but  it  closes  not — it  closes  not,  till 
the  wretched  man  himself  sinks  into  the  widening 
chasm,  and  it  shuts  on  him  in  the  gulf  of  perdition 
for  ever. 

The  very  opposite  is  the  result  of  love,  which  the 
adoption  of  God's  scheme  of  charity  cherishes.  There 
is  *'  comfort  in  love."  In  every  act  of  relieving  the 
wretched  which  it  requires,  is  a  present  bliss,  which 
partakes  more  of  heavenly  than  of  earthly  joy.  It 
produces  trustful  peace  amid  annoyances,  perplexi- 
ties, and  calamities.  It  leads  to  satisfaction,  even 
with  little.  In  peace  of  conscience,  the  conscious- 
ness of  doing  good  and  of  receiving  God's  smile,  it 
imparts  blessedness  which  gold  selfishly  used  can 
never  buy.  It  gives  a  lasting  joy.  Spend  money  on 
self,  and  how  quick  the  gratification  is  gone.  But 
the  joy  of  beneficence  grows  and  brightens  in  the 
remembrance.  To  know  that  by  foregoing  a  selfish 
gratification  I  have  relieved  the  misery  of  a  fellow- 


PROMOTES  HAPPINESS.  79 

man — that  for  my  gifts  and  self-denial  there  is  less 
ignorance,  less  vice,  less  wretchedness  in  the  world ; 
to  know  that  I  have  helped  to  vindicate  truth  and 
right,  and  to  establish  the  blessed  reign  of  Jesus  ;  to 
hope  that,  by  God's  blessing  on  my  charities,  even 
one  dark  soul  has  been  made  acquainted  with  the 
Saviour  and  led  to  everlasting  bliss  ;  what  can  thrill 
the  soul  with  a  richer,  and  more  lasting  joy  ?  And 
at  the  bed  of  death,  when  all  earthly  treasures  are 
slipping  from  the  grasp,  and  the  memory  of  selfish 
gratifications,  now  past  for  ever,  but  imbitters  the 
spirit,  these  memories  of  charities  and  sacrifices, 
offered  for  Christ's  sake  and  by  his  grace,  will  stand 
like  angels  of  mercy,  fanning  the  soul  with  airs  of 
heaven,  and  cheering  it  with  an  undying  joy  in  the 
agonies  of  dissolution. 

No  language  oftener  meets  a  pastor's  ear,  than  the 
complaint,  "I  do  not  enjoy  religion."  The  churches 
present  a  painful  contrast  with  the  habitual  happi- 
ness of  the  apostles,  whose  writings,  though  written 
usually  in  the  depths  of  distresses,  more  than  any 
human  compositions  overflow  with  a  deep  and  exult- 
ant joy.  But  there  is  little  apprehension  of  what 
is  a  prevalent  cause  of  this  lack  of  spiritual  joy — the 
withholding  of  charity,  and  the  consequent  increase 
of  worldliness  and  the  stagnation  of  holy  love.  Hap- 
piness cannot  be  poured  into  the  soul  from  without, 
like  water  into  a  cistern ;  the  water  of  life  is  not  said 
to  flow  into  a  man,  but  to  flow  "  out  of  him.''     To 


80  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

regain  lost  enjoyment,  the  Christian  must  increase 
the  exertions  and  self-denial  of  love.  Let  him  fill  life 
full  of  efforts  and  sacrifices  to  do  good,  and  he  will 
fill  it  full  of  bliss.  He  can  be  blessed  only  in  ac- 
cordance with  that  law  of  the  entire  moral  universe 
expressed  in  the  comprehensive  words  of  Christ,  "  It 
is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 

Consider,  now,  the  universality  of  this  law.  God 
is  love.  So  far  as  any  addition  to  his  blessedness  is 
concerned,  God  never  received  any  thing.  If,  as  many 
imagine,  every  thing  given  is  just  so  much  taken  from 
the  comfort  of  the  giver,  God  would  have  lost  more 
happiness  than  all  his  creatures,  for  he  is  always  giv- 
ing. But  he  is  the  most  blessed  of  beings ;  and  he 
is  so,  not  so  much  in  spite  of  his  ceaseless  beneficence, 
as  by  means  of  it.  His  infinitude  of  bliss  is  an  eter- 
nal expression  of  the  law,  ''  It  is  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive." 

Angels  toil  for  others,  happy  in  what  to  selfish 
hearts  would  be  the  humiUating  and  self-denying  ser- 
vice of  ministering  to  those  immeasurably  their  infe- 
riors in  character  and  rank  ;  waiting  upon  the  very 
"  babes  in  Christ "  in  this  nursery  for  heaven. 

In  hell  is  neither  giving,  nor  blessedness.  Selfish- 
ness reigns  alone. 

Thus  the  spirit  of  Christ's  self-sacrificing  love  is 
the  spirit  of  all  heaven,  and  the  essence  of  its  bliss. 
The  spirit  of  selfishness  is  the  spirit  of  hell,  and  the 
source  of  its  misery.      The  principle  of  the  cross, 


PROMOTES  HAPPINESS.  81 

"  Give,  give''  carried  out  to  all  its  results,  makes 
heaven.  The  principle  of  the  worldling's  search  for 
happiness,  "  Get,  get,''  carried  out  to  all  its  results, 
makes  hell. 

The  same  law  is  discernible  even  in  the  confusion 
of  probation  on  earth.  The  purest  joy  is  found,  not 
in  halls  of  wealth,  power,  or  gayety,  nor  yet  in  cot- 
tages where  covetousness  is  always  craving ;  but, 
whether  in  palace  or  hut,  in  the  heart  most  com- 
pletely filled,  the  life  most  completely  controlled  by 
self-sacrificing  love.  Even  at  the  martyr's  stake  are 
witnessed  scenes  of  most  ecstatic  bliss,  because  there 
selfishness  is  most  effectually  crushed,  because  there 
love  enfolds  the  martyr's  soul  brighter  and  purer 
than  the  flames  which  enfold  his  body,  and  is  the 
chariot  of  fire  and  horses  of  fire  which  bear  him  up 
to  heaven. 

Imagine  a  young  lady  surrounded  with  wealth  and 
luxury,  who,  instead  of  living  to  strew  around  her 
blessings,  is  the  spoiled  child  of  indulgence,  the  vic- 
tim of  a  selfishness  that  has  always  reigned  un- 
checked. She  passes  her  existence,  full  of  fretful- 
ness  and  discontent,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  satisfy 
desires  which  indulgence  has  made  numerous  and 
insatiable  as  an  army  of  locusts,  and  which,  in  their 
devouring  march  through  life,  turn  all  the  anticipa- 
tions and  opportunities  of  enjoyment  opening  invit- 
ingly before  her,  into  unhappiness,  and  make  the  life 
of  their  victim  to  be  always  "like  the  garden  of 

Scrip.  Benev, 


82  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE. 

Eden  before  them,  and  behind  them  a  desolate  wil- 
derness." 

Contrast  with  this  imaginary  case  an  historical 
personage.  She  was  one  of  the  first  missionary 
band  that  left  our  shores,  when  every  step  was  un- 
certain and  hazardous,  and  war  redoubled  the  dan- 
gers of  the  untried  undertaking.  Arrived  in  Asia, 
she  is  driven  from  the  country,  tossed  again  upon  the 
ocean,  and  buffeted  with  discomfort,  sickness,  and 
difficulty,  till  she  dies.  But  her  hfe  was  blessedness, 
and  her  death  was  peace.  For  the  former,  all  out- 
ward circumstances  combine  to  produce  happiness ; 
but  selfishness  makes  her  miserable.  For  the  latter, 
gjl  outward  circumstances  combined  to  bring  discom- 
fort ;  by  her  own  sell"  consecrating  act  she  had  rushed 
into  the  midst  of  trials  ;  but  all  the  floods  of  afflic- 
tion could  not  quench  the  fire  of  her  love,  nor  drown 
the  flame  of  joy  which  ever  mounted  from  the  altar 
of  her  consecrated  heart.  The  former  will  vapor 
life  away  and  die,  and  she  and  the  silks  that  clothed 
her  will  decay  and  be  forgotten  together ;  but  the 
memory  of  Harriet  Newell  will  always  refresh 
the  earth,  and  hope,  and  love,  and  self  denial  Avill 
spring  ever  with  new  freshness  from  her  sea-girt 
grave.  Yes  ;  better  is  it,  greater  is  it,  that,  in  doing 
good,  we  be  like  the  sweet  incense  burned  before  the 
Lord,  consumed  ourselves  while  spreading  a  sweet 
savor  of  beneficence  about  us — better  that  we  be  like 
the  sacred  oil  of  the  seven-branched  candlestick,  con- 


PROMOTES  HAPPINESS.  83 

sumed  ourselves,  while  giving  a  holy  light  to  others, 
than  to  gain  for  our  own  enjoyment  all  that  selfish- 
ness ever  won. 

Paul  and  Silas,  having  "  suffered  the  loss  of  all 
things,"  bloody  with  scourging,  fastened  painfully  in 
the  stocks  in  the  inner  prison,  broke  the  silence  of 
midnight  with  songs  of  joy.  And  love  always  sings  : 
toiling,  sacrificing,  suffering,  yet  it  sings.  And  in 
proportion  as  that  love  fills  our  hearts,  controls  our 
lives,  subdues  the  tormenting  covetings  of  selfish- 
ness, and  makes  it  our  "  meat  to  do  the  wdll  of  Him 
that  sent  us,"  in  that  proportion  will  be  the  fulness 
and  the  continuity  with  which  we  shall  join  the 
song  of  love — that  song  which  no  prison  walls  nor 
stake  of  martyrdom  can  silence  ;  which,  ceaseless  as 
the  exhalations  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  is  going 
up  everywhere  from  humble  hearts  toiling  and  suf- 
fering to  do  God's  will — that  irrepressible  song, 
which,  when  death  shall  have  broken  down  the  bars 
of  this  mortality,  shall  burst  into  the  shout  of  eter- 
nal and  heavenly  praise. 

Thus  has  God  made  the  universe  according  to  that 
law,  "It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 
Let  any  intelligent  being  cease  to  seek  the  good  of 
others,  and  he  ceases  to  be  blessed  himself  Let  the 
sun  cease  to  pour  his  beams  abroad,  let  him  gather 
his  rays  only  into  his  own  bosom,  and  he  will  not 
only  cease  to  shine  on  others,  but  will  become  black 
and  unseen  himself  in  the  universal  night.     So,  while 


84  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCB. 

any  spirit  that  God  has  made  lives  not  for  itself,  but 
for  its  Maker  and  its  Maker's  works,  it  shines  above 
the  brightness  of  the  sun  in  glory.  But  when  it  be- 
gins to  gather  its  efforts  into  itself  and  to  pour  its 
blessings  only  into  its  own  bosom,  that  moment  its 
glory  goes  out  in  night,  and  it  becomes  a  part  of  "  the 
blackness  of  darkness  for  ever." 

In  vain,  then,  do  you  look  for  happiness,  while  the 
business  of  life  is  not  penetrated  and  controlled  by 
benevolence.  It  were  a  contradiction  and  disorder- 
ing of  God's  whole  scheme  of  providence  to  permit 
it.  And  it  were  equally  a  contradiction  of  God's 
word ;  for  as  the  word  of  God  is  true,  they  who 
"  will  be  rich,"  and  therefore  neglect  in  their  business 
the  beneficence  which  God  requires,  must  "pierce 
themselves  through  with  many  sorrows." 

Hasten,  then,  thankfully  to  adopt  God's  plan  for 
saving  you  from  these  many  sorrows,  and  learn  by 
your  own  experience  that  "  it  is  more  blessed  to  give 
than  to  receive." 

Nor  think  that  these  sorrows  are  for  this  life  only. 
Grod  has  lifted  the  veil  from  the  awful  future,  and 
recorded  the  decision,  "  No  covetous  man  hath  any 
inheritance  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ."  "  Be  not  de- 
ceived ;  neither  thieves,  nor  covetous,  nor  drunkards 
shall  inherit  the  kingdom  of  God."  If  there  be  one 
cause  more  effectual  than  any  other  in  satisfying  men 
with  false  hopes,  or  in  turning  the  attention  quite 
away  from  rehgion,  hardening  the  heart  in  impeni- 


CONCLUSION  85 

tence,  and  peopling  the  realms  of  woe,  that  cause  is 
worldliness.  If  you  value  your  immortal  interests, 
if  you  have  any  just  apprehension  how  many  and 
powerful  are  the  obstacles  to  your  salvation,  and 
how  imminent  your  danger  of  being  snared  into  a 
fatal  negligence  of  your  soul,  it  will  be  presumptuous 
trifling  with  your  eternal  welfare,  if  you  adopt  not 
the  scriptural  plan  of  subduing,  by  God's  blessing, 
that  worldliness  which  is  the  deadliest  of  all  these 
opposing  influences,  and  which  the  apostle  so  solemn- 
ly warns  you  is  sure,  if  not  subdued,  to  plunge  you 
"  into  temptation  and  a  snare,  and  into  many  foolish 
and  hurtful  lusts,  wliich  drown  men  in  destruction 
and  perdition." 

Such  are  the  motives  to  systematic  benevolence ; 
and  such  its  vital  and  extensive  connections  with  the 
Christian  life  and  the  prosperity  of  Christ's  kingdom. 
And  the  force  of  these  motives  is  enhanced  by  God's 
own  revealed  estimate  of  the  importance  of  the  duty 
of  giving  to  relieve  the  wretched.  There  is  some- 
thing peculiarly  interesting  in  the  language  of  Christ, 
when  guarding  his  disciples  against  selfish  motives  in 
alms-giving,  and  enjoining  the  precautions  useful  to 
secure  an  eye  single  to  the  glory  of  God.  "  Thy  Fa- 
ther, which  seeth  in  secret,  himself  shall  reward  thee 
openly."  As  if  the  Monarch  of  the  universe  felt  a 
peculiar  pleasure  in  the  humble  disciple  whose  aim  is 
to  honor  him  by  his  secret  charities,  and  would  bring 


86  SCRIPTURAL  BENEVOLENCE 

him  before  the  assembled  universe  and  with  his  own 
royal  hand  encircle  his  brow  with  the  incorruptible 
crown.  And  verily,  one  "  Well  done,  good  and  faith- 
ful servant,"  from  the  lips  of  the  King  of  heaven, 
may  well  outweigh  all  human  applause,  all  selfish 
gains.  And  as  if  to  show  the  intensity  of  his  interest, 
and  the  particularity  with  which  he  notices  and  re- 
wards what  is  given  and  what  is  withheld,  God  has 
revealed  from  heaven  that  even  so  insignificant  a 
gift  as  "  a  cup  of  cold  water  only,"  given  with  right 
motives,  shall  not  lose  its  reward  ;  and  has  trans- 
mitted to  all  generations  the  solemn  record  of  his  ap- 
probation of  the  widow's  farthing. 

And  the  Saviour  has  invested  the  duty  with  an 
immeasurable  sacredness,  even  with  all  the  sacred- 
ness  of  love  to  him  and  regard  to  his  sufferings  ;  for 
he  declares  from  the  throne  of  judgment,  that  every 
gift,  given  with  the  pure  desire  to  aid  his  church, 
he  receives  as  given  to  aid  himself;  and  every  re- 
fusal to  give,  he  regards  as  a  refusal  to  minister  to 
his  own  wants.  He  puts  himself  in  the  place  of  his 
church ;  he  bares  his  bosom  to  receive  every  neglect 
of  her  in  her  necessities  ;  he  opens  his  heart  to  treas- 
ure up  as  a  favor  bestowed  on  himself,  every  favor 
bestowed  on  her.  "  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it,"  or  did 
it  not,  "  to  one  of  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,  ye 
did  it,"  or  did  it  not,  "  to  me." 

Having  thus  invested  these  objects  of  charity  with 
the  sacredness  of  his  own  person,  and,  as  it  were, 


CONCLUSION.  87 

linked  the  performance  or  neglect  of  the  duty  with 
every  sensation  of  his  own  throbbing  heart,  he  in- 
vests it  with  a  new  solemnity,  and  reveals  in  it  a  new 
importance,  by  declaring,  that  in  the  final  judgment 
the  duty  of  charity  to  the  distressed  will  be  selected 
as  the  key  to  the  whole  life  and  the  test  of  the  whole 
character.  "  Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit 
the  kingdom  prepared  for  you  from  the  foundation  of 
the  world ;  for  I  was  a  hungered,  and  ye  gave  me 
meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  drink ;  I  was 
a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in  ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed 
me  ;  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me  ;  I  was  in  prison, 
and  ye  came  unto  me."  "  Depart  from  me,  ye  cursed, 
into  everlasting  fire,  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his 
angels  ;  for  I  was  a  hungered,  and  ye  gave  me  no 
meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me  no  drink ;  I 
was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  not  in ;  naked,  and 
ye  clothed  me  not ;  sick,  and  in  prison,  and  ye  visited 
me  not." 

Behold,  then,  in  God's  own  estimate  of  this  duty, 
that  we  have  not  overrated  its  importance.  Behold 
your  hardihood,  if  you  leave,  unsystematized,  to  ca- 
price and  chance,  a  duty  which  is  held  so  important 
in  the  solemn  estimation  of  God,  and  is  presented  by 
the  Judge  himself,  as  the  key  and  test  of  the  char- 
acter in  the  final  decision.  Behold  with  trembling 
your  peril,  lest,  though  you  have  even  sat  at  Christ's 
table,  you  be  found  at  last  with  those  who  have  not 
ministered  to  Christ. 


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